Shame on the Obama Administration and the NAACP

What happened to Shirley Sherrod was a travesty. To think that the NAACP and the Obama administration would leap to a conclusion without all the facts is beyond the pale. The President and CEO of the NAACP, Benjamin Jealous, said on the Rachel Maddow show that they were “snookered” by the edited tape. Yeah, right. He was on Ms. Maddow's show strictly for damage control. I think Ms. Maddow gave him a free pass on his spinning. She should have hammered him more about his organization's initial response.

As far as I'm concerned he and his organization are just as guilty of prejudice as anyone. Here's what his pathetic response was just after the edited tape came out, as reported in the Huffington Post:

NAACP President Benjamin Jealous issued a statement late on Monday saying his organization was appalled by Sherrod's "shameful" actions.

Shame on the both of them! This knee-jerk, reactionary behavior by those in power illustrates exactly where the country has descended. These are the people who hold our lives in their hands. They are supposed to help us. Yet they bow to unsubstantiated accusations without any due diligence.

To think that the NAACP, who deals with racial insensitivity probably on a daily basis, should be so egregiously insensitive as to fall for this claptrap is despicable.

Ms. Sherrod should be reinstated. The head of the Agricultural Department, Tom Vilsack, who demanded her resignation should himself be asked to resign. He obviously is not a good leader. What else has he done, or worse yet, what will he do in the future if he can’t perform the necessary and simple steps to find out the truth about Ms. Sherrod?

Here is his great leadership qualities in action per the Huffington Post:

Her resignation as the agency's state director of rural development was quickly accepted by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. He cited a zero-tolerance policy and told CNN that he was working to "reverse the checkered civil rights history at the department."

That's it, Mr. Vilsack, look before you leap...a great leadership attribute. And I love the "checkered civil rights" spin. You go get 'em, cowboy!

This says a lot about the Obama administration. It didn't even come to the forward in defense of Ms. Sherrod. It just went along like a stupid lemming heading for a cliff.

This administration has been a disappointment since day one. This episode is further proof that this administration is not for the people, it’s for its own self preservation. Any whiff of bad publicity results in rash decision-making with careful analysis.