This firing of USDA official Shirley Sherrod has more drama than an episode of As the World Turns. Sherrod resigned after a tape surfaced that seemed to show her for making racist remarks about withholding help from a white farmer. Conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart posted the clip and Fox News ran it. Sherrod insisted that her words had been "misconstrued." She has also said that she was forced to resign by the White House, which condemned the remarks along with the NAACP. Surprise, surprise: Sherrod's resignation is now being attributed to President Obama and the NAACP instead of the actions of Breitbart and Fox News. Breitbart told CNN's John King USA on Tuesday that releasing the video was "not about Shirley Sherrod." "This was about the NAACP attacking the Tea Party, and this is showing racism at an NAACP event," he said. "I did not ask for Shirley Sherrod to be fired." We guess manipulating video had nothing to do with it, either.
Read more at CNN.com, and see below a longer video of the event provided to us by the NAACP, which says it was "snookered." (The label says "full video," but it does appear to have been edited) Skip to the 21:00 mark in order to see the context of her remarks about her experience with the white farmer, where, she says, "working with him made me see that it's really about those who have, versus those who don't," instead of race.