Lesson Learned After Sherrod Case? Probably Not

July 22, 2010 — -- With pretty much everyone involved in the Shirley Sherrod case apologizing -- from President Obama and the NAACP on the left, to Bill O'Reilly on the right -- the question remains: Will this episode tamp down America's warp-speed, hair-trigger political culture?

Not if you listen to Eric Boehlert, a senior fellow for Media Matters for America, a left-wing media monitoring group.

He didn't think the incident -- where Sherrod, a USDA official, was forced to resign after a racial flap and then urged to return to her job a day later by President Obama -- would bring about change.

"Frankly, the right wing and the right-wing mob is committed to this stuff," he said. "Whether it stops other people from taking it seriously, I think, is the more important question."

Sherrod, who is black, grabbed national headlines after conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart posted a video clip of her from a March NAACP event talking about her dilemma in helping a white farmer 24 years ago.

She later was asked to step down from her position in Georgia. The move was supported by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and the NAACP.

Vilsack later flipped from his initial decision after the NAACP released the full video of Sherrod's remarks, which supported her argument that her speech had been taken out of context and, in fact, she'd been preaching against racism.

Brietbart: Foes Making Me 'Seem Racist When I'm Not'

Breitbart agreed that the partisan media wars would not die down, but he blamed liberals and the mainstream media for making him into a target.

"It's a convenient rush to judgment," he said. "To make me this bad guy who's taking on this lovely, black grandmotherly type. This is about making me try to seem racist when I'm not."

Breitbart, who posted the video of Sherrod with the headline, "Video Proof: The NAACP Awards Racism -- 2010," said it was not meant to be an attack on Sherrod but rather a lesson to the NAACP that it uses accusations of racism to stifle dissent.

Peter Daou, a digital media consultant, said the battles would continue.

"Hopefully, the people in the position of responsibility will take just minute to say, 'I don't want to beat the news cycle, I just want to get it right,'" he said.

Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, said the news cycle moves so fast that controversies such as Sherrod's would continue to happen.

"Everyone feels compelled to make judgments and comment on things so quickly," he said. "There's not just one news cycle, there's three or four news cycles inside of a day. And in politics, there's such a premium on winning each of those news cycles."

The story was picked up Bill O'Reilly, who said: "That is simply unacceptable and Ms. Sherrod must resign. The federal government cannot have skin color deciding any assistance."

By today, he was apologizing.

Obama also called Sherrod today to apologize and Vilsack has offered her a job tasked with settling lawsuits from minority farmers who say they were discriminated against in applying for farm loans.

She is discussing her options with her family.

"This rush to judgment was pretty extreme," Media Matters' Boehlert said. "We haven't seen the administration fire people based on a gotcha story before. Hopefully, we won't see it again."