A Prime Example Of Never Ever Jumping The Gun (Update 3X's With NAACP Statement)

Photo from USDA

Oh dear as me :

Shirley Sherrod, the former Georgia director of Rural Development, said she received a phone call from the USDA's deputy undersecretary Cheryl Cook on Monday while she was in a car. Cook told her that the White House wanted her to call it quits.

"They called me twice," Sherrod told the Associated Press. "The last time they asked me to pull over the side of the road and submit my resignation on my Blackberry, and that's what I did."

The Obama Administration sure is looking more and more like cowards. And Shirley Sherrod will not be quiet about.

Thank goodness she isn't practicing silence on this.

Now you have some claiming this proves the NAACP resolution on the Tea Party was indeed wrong, leading Sherrod to be angry at the NAACP with Politico gleefully for to cover it.

Although I fear Sherrod is clearly letting the obvious justified anger be based on Jealous' terrible knee jerk tweets last night form her thoughts on this, the fact of the matter is this:

The resolution and the resignation are two different issues.

Now one easily lead to the other, because you know Breitbart was determined to get revenge of the NAACP after the explosion that caused Mark Williams to receive some deserved public embarrassment.

Update: Now, he White House has come out of nowhere to deny they had responsibility, and that Tom Vilsack, the man at the head of the Agriculture Department, is the one taking the full responsibilities for his actions. But....

A White House official told me just now that the White House backs Vilsack's decision -- but that it was Vilsack's alone. The official said the White House -- contrary to the Sherrod's charge -- did not pressure the Department to fire her.

Either way, whether they are lying or not, the White House is supporting Vilsack instead of ordering him to give back Sherrod's job.

Absolutely pathetic.

Update 2: If you aren't watching CNN now, please do so.

Update 3: The NAACP statement. Though I wish they would have publically said "Sorry to Sherrod", the rest of this is okay, including:

With regard to the initial media coverage of the resignation of USDA Official Shirley Sherrod, we have come to the conclusion we were snookered by Fox News and Tea Party Activist Andrew Breitbart into believing she had harmed white farmers because of racial bias.

Having reviewed the full tape, spoken to Ms. Sherrod, and most importantly heard the testimony of the white farmers mentioned in this story, we now believe the organization that edited the documents did so with the intention of deceiving millions of Americans.

The fact is Ms. Sherrod did help the white farmers mentioned in her speech. They personally credit her with helping to save their family farm.

Moreover, this incident and the lesson it prompted occurred more that 20 years before she went to work for USDA.

Finally, she was sharing this account as part of a story of transformation and redemption. In the full video, Ms.Sherrod says she realized that the dislocation of farmers is about “haves and have nots.” "It’s not just about black people, it’s about poor people," says Sherrod in the speech. “We have to get to the point where race exists but it doesn’t matter.”

This is a teachable moment, for activists and for journalists.