The Obama administration clearly deserves most of the blame for misinterpreting a video clip to mean that a black USDA worker withheld help from a white farmer, according to Comedy Central's Jon Stewart.
While Andrew Breitbart is responsible for posting the edited video of Shirley Sherrod on his BigGovernment.com website, the Obama administration did not take the time to obtain the full speech before calling for her resignation.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack essentially forced Sherrod to resign. Stewart joked that she had been "Vilsacked." The Agriculture Secretary apologized but at least one statement reflected a lack of contrition.
"It should have been done in a much more personal way. It should have been done with far more thought and it should have been done in far less haste," said Vilsack.
"I shouldn't have been done," Stewart said to cheers from his studio audience. "We're not angry about how you fired her. We're angry that you fired her."
"I'm sorry I hit your dog with my car. I should have smothered him with a pillow," Stewart joked.
The NAACP was also forced to backtrack after initially condemning Sherrod. "We were snookered by Fox News and Tea Party activist Andrew Breitbart into believing Sherrod harmed white farmers because of racial bias," the NAACP said in a statement.
"First of all, Fox News is too busy to busy with their Black Panther hard-on to bother with this and the guy who leaked this tape may be the most honest person in this entire story," said Stewart.
Only five months ago, Breitbart said, "I want it to be in the history books saying I took down the institutional left."
"He didn't say I want to be in the history books as a paragon of honesty," Stewart noted. "He didn't say I would like to be in the museum of broadcasting and be known by children around the world as Arnold B. Truthington of Accuracy Lane. No, he said out loud, 'I want to bring down the institutional left.' So, if you are on the institutional left and you receive a package from him, watch the whole f**king tape!"
