Defending the Indefensible
Okay, watch this short clip:
Contrast with Andrew Breitbart’s initial post:
We are in possession of a video from in which Shirley Sherrod, USDA Georgia Director of Rural Development, speaks at the NAACP Freedom Fund dinner in Georgia. In her meandering speech to what appears to be an all-black audience, this federally appointed executive bureaucrat lays out in stark detail, that her federal duties are managed through the prism of race and class distinctions.
In the first video, Sherrod describes how she racially discriminates against a white farmer. She describes how she is torn over how much she will choose to help him. And, she admits that she doesn’t do everything she can for him, because he is white. Eventually, her basic humanity informs that this white man is poor and needs help. But she decides that he should get help from “one of his own kind”. She refers him to a white lawyer.
Sherrod’s racist tale is received by the NAACP audience with nodding approval and murmurs of recognition and agreement. Hardly the behavior of the group now holding itself up as the supreme judge of another groups’ racial tolerance.
Gee, Andrew Breitbart, I can’t imagine why anyone would’ve reacted as if your post was about Shirley Sherrod being a racist.
As importantly, even the Breitbart fallback position — that the NAACP audience in the video was racist — is idiotic and misleading. Rich Lowry alludes to this at The Corner. I’ve seen a few other people rebut it too, but no one as eloquently as a commenter at Radley Balko’s indispensable blog The Agitator. Earlier in the thread, someone writes, “There’s no need for context. She states that she gave a farmer less help than she had to simply because he’s white. Sorry, that makes her a racist. Even worse is the response from the audience that makes it plain that she’s preaching to the choir.”
Here is the commenter’s response (emphasis added):
She didn’t say that. She said she didn’t go to the wall for a condescending jerk. Not less than she had to, but less than might have been possible. There didn’t seem to be much simple about the situation, hence the depth of the story. That this was magnified because she thought to herself ‘this son of a bitch is asking for me for help and can’t treat me like an equal’ seems reasonable. I don’t know how this makes her a racist, more a person who lives in a complicated world where racists exist who hate her only because she’s black and she’d rather not go out of her way to help people so prejudiced against her. Seems reasonable so far. Then she tells the story of how she sees past that farmers hostility that she interpreted as racism for what it really is: the desperate act of a desperately poor farmer. Something that resonates with her, having seen it hundreds if not thousands of times before. She feels remorse for her judgmental (though not racist, I can’t stress this enough) nature, and proceeds to create two lifelong friends by becoming seemingly the only person on earth with the capabilities and the will to save this man’s farm from foreclosure. This was all foreshadowed quite plainly with the way that she began her story, intimating that she would be telling a parable not about race, but about poverty and overcoming racial stereotypes and prejudices. Those people in the audience you hear agreeing aren’t cheering her supposed racism, they’re supporting the redemption she foreshadowed in her introduction.
Forgive me for noting one more time that this isn’t the first time that Andrew Breitbart has smeared an innocent person in the course of waging ideological warfare, and if every site that fell for the ACORN videos as I did had paid even a little bit of attention to the treatment of Juan Carlos Vera, rather than conveniently allowing the story to die rather than being forced to admit error in highlighting his plight, perhaps Big Government would’ve been discredited as a trustworthy outfit.
Shep Smith learned that lesson, as he notes in this clip:
Elsewhere, I do my best to explain how to argue with Mr. Breitbart.
The real question is did Breitbart edit the video or have knowledge of the rest of the video’s contents? If so, that really is indefensible. If not, it’s perhaps poor journalism, but not beyond the pale.
Either way he owes a correction, which I believe he’s already posted. Don’t you think you should include a link to that or at least note that?
And let’s assume that he posted the entirety of what was available to him. Certainly in hindsight, it seems apparent that he should have gotten more information or the complete video before posting.
But let me just take this opportunity to note again that you alleged murder and conspiracy relating to the Gitmo suicides without having all of the facts. And you have yet to issue any sort of correction or at least clarification. Is there evidence to back it up? If not, don’t you owe it to your readers to let them know? Or is that just the standard for Breitbart?
— Derek Smithee · Jul 22, 11:01 AM · #
Derek,
A couple points:
1) Andrew Breitbart didn’t just post a misleadingly edited video, he went from television program to television program insisting that he did nothing wrong, asserted that the video asserted “present tense racism” even after the full speech was given, and otherwise conducted himself in the most despicable manner imaginable.
2) RE The Gitmo Three, you persist in writing as if I made allegations based on my own deluded imagination. What I wrote is that there is circumstantial evidence of detainee murders, that there should be a full, independent investigation to determine what actually happened given the implausibility of the official narrative, and that we may never know how the men in question actually died.
I based my column on the circumstantial evidence provided in this report: http://law.shu.edu/ProgramsCenters/PublicIntGovServ/policyresearch/Guantanamo-Reports.cfm
And in followup reporting here: http://harpers.org/archive/2010/01/hbc-90006368
In a followup post here at TAS I linked to criticism by Joe Carter, and said I’d eventually revisit the subject. Since then I’ve spent some time doing reporting, run the above by a few military people I know as a basic bullshit test, and sought former military folks who served at Gitmo and other detainee centers for their perspective. Understandably, the few people I’ve talked to won’t go on the record, nor do they have specific knowledge that resolves all this one way or the other. Their best educated guesses differ somewhat, though most I’ve talked to think that the official story is weirdly fishy.
When a government known to abuse detainees winds up with three dead bodies, and an official narrative that doesn’t make any sense, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest the possibility that they could’ve been killed when independent reports from reputable sources provide partial but not “beyond a reasonable doubt” evidence for that proposition.
I’m sorry that you’re so vexed by that conclusion, and I hope that in time I am able to get more facts that either prove your skepticism or my darkest worries correct.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Jul 22, 11:57 AM · #
The most despicable manner imaginable? Surely your imagination is not that limited.
I guess it’s obviously a subjective matter, because I would say it’s despicable to allege murder on the part of our military/intelligence services with only partial (and circumstantial) evidence (but not the most despicable manner imaginable).
I guess my problem is that when it suits you, a possibility is enough to go on, but when it comes to Breitbart and select others, you have much stricter standards. It’s certainly possible that the NAACP crowd was reacting favorably to discrimination against whites. You can no more say that it beyond certainty than I can be absolutely positive that the Gitmo Three were not murdered, all of which was covered up by a massive conspiracy. Since you’ve decided to leave that allegation out there, why shouldn’t Breitbart leave that out there until it’s conclusively proven that the audience was not acting out of racial animus?
Actually, I don’t mean to tie what you do up with Breitbart – that’s just fun to do when you react so high-mindedly to his tactics. Regardless of Breitbart, I think you ought to at least come out and say that follow-up has not produced any additional evidence (or lay out the evidence if it has). That was a very serious charge to make on the basis of the evidence you had, and while you may have thought it reasonable to suggest the possibility (still can’t agree with you on that), surely it’s not unreasonable to expect some kind of clarification or further statement (especially since you said yourself you’d have more to say on it).
— Derek Smithee · Jul 22, 03:09 PM · #
Breitbart redacted, people overreacted.
— KVS · Jul 22, 03:52 PM · #
Derek,
Obviously I don’t think that what I am criticizing and doing are the same, but if it is the case, then it doesn’t change the fact that my analysis of Breitbart is correct. It’s possible to fall short of standards one legitimately sets for others (though again, I deny that’s what is going on here).
Beyond my repeatedly linking people who disagree with me, and saying that we have no way of knowing what actually happened pending the independent investigation I’ve called for, I don’t know what kind of clarification you are possibly looking for.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Jul 22, 07:59 PM · #
So if Breitbart linked to some critics and called for an independent investigation of the NAACP, you’d be fine with that?
Somehow, I doubt that. Such a lame cop out. You’re just like Breitbart.
— Derek Smithee · Jul 23, 05:49 AM · #
Actually, you’re worse than Breitbart, because you pretend to have higher standards. You use things like journalistic ethics to criticize those you don’t agree with, but give others you do agree with a pass, or at most a token show of disapproval – all with an air of intellectual superiority and high-mindedness. Lame.
You even continually harp on Breitbart about Acorn, but he’s got a hell of a lot more evidence than your alleged murder/conspiracy theory. I’m sure if he just links to some critics and calls for an independent investigation, you’ll be satisfied, right?
It’s been 6 months since you wrote your Murder at Gitmo column. Are you not embarrassed to have that sitting out there without any follow-up? And yes, people fall short of the standards they set for others all of the time, but then they OWN UP TO IT. I’m sorry to say that your credibility is in tatters. I don’t often agree with you ideologically, but I do think that there are valid points to be made about some of the tactics of the right. It’s too bad you’re just reinforcing them.
You often talk about judging journalists by the quality of their work. Well, let’s hope that no one looks to closely at yours.
— Derek Smithee · Jul 23, 06:08 AM · #