Dirty Pool

Since Tuesday night the Shirley Sharrod case has dominated the news. The best that can be said is that it temporarily replaced the Gulf of Mexico. The bulk of the spin since has dealt with the spineless response by the Department of Agriculture, presumably with presidential knowledge hence approval, and the NAACP. I couldn’t agree more!

But this obscures what I consider a much larger point. Three minutes of Ms Sherrod’s forty minute speech were presented as in keeping with the entire speech when the exact opposite was the case. What happened is not being argued. What is questionable is why we are now fixated on the left’s cowardly response rather than the right’s gross defamation that led to it? Foul play by the right seems to get more cavalier public response than anything coming from the left.  Dan Rather’s career with CBS was ended because of his misplaced trust in a source of information that might have been accurate, but not properly documented. Those advocates who spoke on Fox “News” must have at least suspected that the allegation with which they made their case was an out and out lie. But there they were the next day, right back at their desks criticizing the Agriculture Department and NAACP for having believed that lie a day earlier.

My hope is that when the smoke clears this affair will be publicly and broadly perceived as a morality play, or literally, an immorality play. I don’t see this as beneficial to the political right, but rather a case of bad strategic timing. This technique was used to good effect in putting Acorn out of business. In doing so it served the right’s interest by destroying a major force in organizing opposition voting. But I fail to see the wisdom of this caper, with little to gain and much to lose by painting a clear picture of how these people operate.

One lesson history should have taught them. It’s better not to engage in this sort of dirty pool unless you’re certain you can destroy all the evidence that can be used against you. Richard Nixon would probably agree.