. UNITED STATES: GOVERNMENT: Shirley Sherrod: White House Forced My Resignation Shirley Sherrod: White House Forced My Resignation July 20, 2010 3:31 PM Political Hotsheet CBS News <http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20011099-503544.html> Updated at 6:11 p.m. ETThe Department of Agriculture employee who resigned after a controversy erupted over recent remarks she made is now saying that the White House forced her resignation.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, however, is taking responsibility for the resignation, and the White House reportedly says it had no part in his decision.
Shirley Sherrod, the USDA's former director of rural development in Georgia, said USDA deputy undersecretary Cheryl Cook called her Monday and said the White House wanted her to resign, the Associated Press reports.
"They called me twice," Sherrod told the AP, noting that she was driving when she received the calls. "The last time they asked me to pull over the side of the road and submit my resignation on my Blackberry, and that's what I did."
Sherrod submitted her resignation after she became the focus of scrutiny from Fox News and conservative blogs over remarks she gave at an NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet on March 27. A video of a portion of her remarks were posted on a conservative blog, giving the impression that Sherrod admitted to discriminating against a white farmer as an employee of the USDA.
The comments were taken out of context, however. In her remarks that day, Sherrod was recounting a story that pre-dates her tenure at the USDA by more than two decades. Sherrod says in her story that Chapter 12 bankruptcy had just been enacted; Chapter 12 was instituted for family farmers in 1986, while Sherrod was appointed to head the USDA's Rural Development office in Georgia just last July. Furthermore, the point of Sherrod's story is that race is not an issue.
Sherrod has said the video excerpt did not include the full story of her relationship with the farmer, with whom she says she became friends after helping him avoid foreclosure.
July 20, 2010 5:37 PM Shirley Sherrod Helped Keep Us Out of Bankruptcy, Farmer's Wife Says Political Hotsheet CBS News <http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20011130-503544.html>Shirley Sherrod was forced to resign from the Department of Agriculture because of recent remarks she made that, taken out of context, suggested she discriminated against a white farmer. That farmer's wife, however, is saying Sherrod is a "friend for life" who saved their family farm from foreclosure.
Sherrod served as director of rural development in Georgia until Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack forced her to resign after she came under scrutiny for remarks she gave at an NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet on March 27. A video of a portion of her remarks were posted on a conservative blog, giving the impression that Sherrod admitted to discriminating against a white farmer as an employee of the USDA.
The incident in question, however, took place two decades ago, and the wife of the farmer in question told told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Sherrod "kept us out of bankruptcy."
NAACP Takes It Back: Retracts Criticism Of Fired USDA WorkerThe NAACP is now asking the Obama administration to reconsider the decision to force a black USDA employee to resign over racially tinged remarks.
KWTX.com <http://www.kwtx.com/nationalnews/headlines/98878034.html>WASHINGTON (July 20, 2010)--NAACP leaders were calling on the Obama administration Tuesday to reconsider its decision to force a black Agriculture Department employee to resign over racially tinged remarks, reversing the organizations earlier criticism of the employee.
NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous said in a statement that the group was "snookered" into believing that USDA employee Shirley Sherrod expressed racist sentiments at a local NAACP meeting in Georgia earlier this year.
Tuesday, Jul 20, 2010 16:55 ET White House wants it both ways on Sherrod firingThe White House says it backs her firing from the USDA but also tries to distance itself
Salon <http://www.salon.com/news/politics/ war_room/2010/07/20/vilsack_on_sherrod_firing/> A shorter URL for the above link: <http://tinyurl.com/23e4h64>Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack issued a statement today explaining that he asked for Georgia rural development director Shirley Sherrod's resignation yesterday because "the controversy surrounding her comments would create situations where her decisions, rightly or wrongly, would be called into question making it difficult for her to bring jobs to Georgia."
As Alex Pareene explained, the controversy Vilsack is referring to was whipped up when Andrew Breitbart released an edited video clip of Sherrod, it was mindlessly picked up by other media, and the Obama administration followed suit.
But now that Breitbart's story of Sherrod being a racist has been exposed as bogus, the White House is trying to have it both ways: They say they support Vilsack's decision but at the same time had absolutely nothing to do with his making it.
Shirley Sherrod: Sacrificial lamb on the altar of race The Washington Post<http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/ 2010/07/shirley_sherrod_sacrificial_la.html>
A shorter URL for the above link: <http://tinyurl.com/2f6e2ay>As teachable moments in the minefield of race in America go, the case of Shirley Sherrod is a big one. When I first saw the video clip this morning, I was astonished. There was a black agriculture department official, Sherrod, boasting about how she used her federal position to deny help to a white farmer. Oh yeah. She needed to go. Or so I thought.
As the day wore on and the truth was revealed, my heart sank. The videotape that caused a firestorm had been selectively edited.
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