Whoever turns out to have actually pulled the trigger on Sherrod,

they did so out of fear of Fox News, and in an atmosphere of overreactive jumpiness. This is pretty nuts to begin with. There are no votes to lose among Fox viewers. Somebody needs to start thinlking about how to make this kind of shit splash back on its source. If they aren't willing to pull the broadcast licenses of these serial liars, then they ought to at least figure out how to publicize their lies in such a way as to discredit them.

the m$m protects their own

I can't believe that the administration is powerless to get their messages out. I say this while fully acknowledging the corporate grip on the American M$M. But mammals survived by being more adaptable and smarter than dinosaurs.

I think it was Norah O'Donell who reported that Fox was "driving the story."

They assumed that the video was as Fox said a racist moment and they acted quickly to stop this woman. It was the idea to not allow this to stand and to be intolerant of anything smelling of racism.

They trusted that Fox news hadn't falsified this video. That was there mistake. They thought that journalism lived in the Fox realm of the msm.

Maybe they wanted to contain the flap before the whole orchestra started playing.

We don't really have an outlet like that so the fight is always asymmetrical.

from American history. The first is our own revolution, in which a ragtag bunch of ill-equipped colonists beat the massed forces of the Britsh (admittedly greatly aided by the fact that the Brits were being somewhat distracted by the French at the time). The second was Vietnam, in which a ragtag army of ill-equipped Vietnamese eventually prevailed over our high-tech legions with all their APCs, B-52s, helicopters, etc.

Objectively weak does not equate to defenseless.

more nimble blogosphere to shut up.

...AND NO FUCKING CONSEQUENCES FOR EITHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Really I would.

Its easier that way--to think that. In politics, if you think one of your workers will be featured on FOX/Glenn Beck for racism, isn't that an invitation to call in the political advisors to develop a strategy to deal with the fallout? It could of been a room full of people. Or a few rooms, with people communicating through conference calls

My point is simply that it was made in a "culture of fear," and is not ending well. We need people who are capable of controlling the message better than that. I don't have any wonderful ideas on how that might be done, but we had best get to work on figuring out how.

and Congressmen are jumpy. Any sudden howls from their constituents, even the baggers who wouldn't vote for a Democrat were guns pointing to their most tender parts, will cause them to start pressuring flunkies on the White House staff to make it stop.

I think that's what's happened here.

Or self-conscious racism. My reaction to the initial story was sadness, but it was also, 'Jeez, I hate racism, and will jump on white people who are guilty, so it would be hypocritical not to be outraged when a person of color is guilty.' I'm pissed, though, because the news sources I rely on, and considered trustworthy took up Faux News' bullshit story and spread it without question. I'm pissed at myself for not digging deeper. WE now have to be the reporters, because the people designated as such, who get paid big bucks and who have supposedly been trained and, we're told, are qualified to 'research and report the facts' have completely dropped the ball - or they no longer have ethics. And I'm pissed that Biebert still has a platform where he can freely distribute his propaganda from. That is unacceptable, and that platform (Faux News) needs to be pulled the fuck down, just like that statue of Saddam in Iraq (although that was a bullshit propaganda story, too, come to think about it - jeez.)

why aren't we - at the least - demanding an apology by Breitbart and Fox News?