RNC’s Steele cancels on NABJ due to food poisoning
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele canceled an appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in San Diego on Friday due to food poisoning.
The NABJ announced the news on its convention website by displaying a picture of Steele with a red “canceled” banner across it, and a write-up that begins: “A bad meal has spoiled one of the most anticipated events at this week’s NABJ convention.”
Steele was to have appeared in a session titled “Life, Liberty and Legacy” a day after Shirley Sherrod spoke at the same convention. Sherrod on Thursday said she planned to sue conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart who posted an edited video that led to accusations of racism and forced her to resign from the Agriculture Department. (After the whole video was seen, the Ag Secretary apologized and the President of the United States called her).
For anyone wondering whether Steele’s cancelation had anything to do with avoiding issues related to Sherrod, we asked the question and an RNC aide tells us it was food poisoning and that in the past week Steele had addressed the Black Chamber of Commerce and the National Urban League.
“While traveling out West the chairman came down with a bad case of food poisoning. He is disappointed to miss the opportunity to take part in this valuable dialogue and looks forward to engaging with NABJ in the very near future,” an RNC statement said.
We were also told that Steele did not visit a hospital, but a doctor was consulted.
My colleague Christopher Doering informs me that an estimated 76 million people in the United States get sick each year with foodborne illness, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Shirley Sherrod says she will sue the blogger
Shirley Sherrod says she will sue conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart who posted an edited video that led to her forced resignation from the Agriculture Department over racism allegations.
“He’ll definitely hear from me,” Sherrod told the National Association of Black Journalists annual conference in San Diego on Thursday.
Does she plan on filing a lawsuit? ”I will definitely do it,” Sherrod said.
“He had to know that he was targeting me,” she added.
Sherrod, who is black, said her bosses at USDA pushed her to resign after conservative media repeatedly broadcast portions of the video in which she seemed to say that she had discriminated against a white farmer. But in the full video of the speech that Sherrod gave to a meeting of the NAACP, she had in fact said that race should not matter.
NABJ said Breitbart had initially accepted an invitation to attend the event but later declined. ”I wish he had come here today because I really would like to talk to him,” Sherrod said.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has apologized and President Barack Obama has called her, but Sherrod has not decided on whether to accept a new job offer from the administration.
Perhaps enough lawsuits will scare away the “yellow journalist” crowd from Internet blogs.
Rrrrrrring, it’s the President calling…
They talked.
President Barack Obama called Shirley Sherrod at about 12:35 p.m. and they spoke for 7 minutes. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says the White House operator unsuccessfully tried to reach her twice last night but was unable to leave a voicemail.
POTUS offered his regrets, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack had been sincere in his apology yesterday, and hoped that she would see “this misfortune” as an opportunity to continue her hard work on behalf of those in need.
In just days, a charge of racism by a conservative led to Sherrod losing her Agriculture Department job and ended in a phone call from the president.
It seems that the more Shirley Sherrod talked this week, the clearer it became how badly the Obama administration handled her sacking as Georgia rural development director at USDA. Sherrod was forced to resign Monday after conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart posted a clip online of a speech she gave in March to a Georgia local NAACP meeting. The clip showed her talking about doing little to help a white farmer 20 years ago because of race. It didn’t show her full remarks and the point of her story, in which she described having an epiphany when she realized no one else was helping the farmer, even his white attorney.
That was when she realized the issue wasn’t race, but poverty, and launched herself into the struggle that ultimately helped save his farm, Sherrod told her audience.
Her bosses didn’t heed her appeals to look at the full tape of her remarks. In a series of calls on Monday Sherrod was initially suspended and then sacked. “The first call I received said, ‘We’re putting you on administrative leave.’ The next call was, ‘Shirley, we’re going to have to ask you to resign.’ And then, ‘The White House wants you to resign’,” Sherrod told NBC’s “Today” show. Although the White House denied involvement in the decision, the hasty rush to judgment embarrassed the Obama administration, which found itself pilloried in the editorial pages on Thursday. Sherrod has been working in rural development for years in Georgia. Her husband, Charles, was a leader in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Georgia during the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s and is now a chaplain at a state prison. Even a brief check should have prompted the administration to take a closer look at the facts. “The Obama administration has been shamed by its rush to judgment,” The New York Times said. “Shirley Sherrod was sandbagged by a two-and-a-half-minute clip from a 45-minute speech in which the real message was reconciliation.” The Washington Post said the administration put “panic before principle.”
This is not the first time this has happened. Several members of the Obama administration have lost their jobs or been demoted, and nominees to cabinet positions have either stepped down or withdrawn their nominations after becoming the target of smear campaigns launched by FOX “News” and Andrew Breitbart.
All the coverage of this episode has been about how the Obama administration “put panic before principle” and “rushed to judgement.” What about the fact that a major news channel (THE major news channel, according to them) intentionally and repeatedly runs deceptive content?
Open your eyes and face reality. The best way to you to finance your plan for global domination has already been answered. If you have to ask the question, apparently you’re not smart enough to realize what’s really in front of you.