A year later, Sherrod won't go away

- Shirley Sherrod, a 63-year-old grandmother, says she has not chosen the role of political gadfly.

By Krissah Thompson, Published: June 15

ALBANY, Ga. — In the year since she was fired from her federal job after being falsely accused of reverse racism, Shirley Sherrod has become the ubiquitous face of the Obama administration’s misstep on race. And she won’t go away.

Before she was ousted, Sherrod had been a low-key U.S. Department of Agriculture bureaucrat and farmers advocate, traversing peanut and pecan farms on the back highways of southwest Georgia. Now, that life has been replaced with political notoriety, negotiations with lawyers and agents, a book deal with a New York publisher and a fresh offer to advise the Obama administration on civil rights.

“I often wonder, ‘Why me?’ ” Sherrod said, piloting her black Lexus through the streets of Albany on a recent afternoon. “To be thrust in the public eye is not what I wanted, but I’ve always had to do what I had to do.”

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“Is she a gadfly to the Obama administration? I don’t know her motivations, but the reality of it is that they screwed up,” said Andra Gillespie, an Emory University professor who studies politics and race. “They apologized, but the decision to fire her is the kind of knee-jerk reaction that people get concerned about with de-racialized candidates, such as Obama. The administration overacted in the Shirley Sherrod case to prove that they don’t always side with the minorities, but they were wrong.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-year-later-sherrod-wont-go-away/2011/06/07/AGjHEVWH_story.html

:)

--imm

You cannot appreciate how great she is until you stand in an auditorium or conference room and hear her speak. She is one of the best speakers I have ever heard. Her life story is amazing and she is too.

I love her backbone and spirit!

all too happy to get rid of (ACORN's censure, Sherrod's firing within--what, 20 hours?): it's almost like they're working together (not necessarily consciously)
too many Americans are Suits: they do what the Boss says and take pride in their groupthink. They scream "McKinney is an embarassment" or "don't you defend her until all the facts come out" or "he should resign because he's embarrassed the Party" or "HE TOOK THE PICTURE IN A FEDERAL GYM! THAT'S OUR MONEY OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG" They rip into lib Dems FOR THE SAME REASON they turn around and say that a Dem should be exempt from policy criticism because they have a D after their name: they're followers. They want the collective Party to be safely uniform. The goal is alignment around conservative ideology and a good PR-crafted image appealing to voters and "investors" (i.e., donors). It's because they're loyal to party--not personality or ideology--that makes them a) assume that everything is working out for the best, Obama has so much to clean up, we must be patient and loyal and donating and hardworking and obedient and not ask for too much; b) attack anyone "embarrassing" the party from the left; c) attack anyone attacking conservative policies passed by the party. This logic is similar to the "liberal pragmatists" who always hold their nose and then wonder why things smell worse than ever before every time they release their left hand from their nostrils and their right from the polling lever.
that's why they're so hard on whistleblowers, too--just ask Cyrus Vance or Ernest Fitzgerald or Bradley Manning or Daniel Ellsberg. The establishment and the party poltical machine is a bipartisan agreement: that's why they blame Nader instead of Jeb and Harris--it's because they feel closer to the GOP than the Greens. Notice how they always complain about too MUCH democracy: they hit the roof when you mention primaries and blame GOP victories rather than the establishment consensus for the results of establishment consensus policies.