Brenda's summary is excellent and doesn't require me following any links to sites I don't like to give clicks to (which is the first bunch of results I was finding while trying to find the exact quote)*. Paul Krugman's most excellent analogy for the whole story was

It was basically as if I said, “Some people say that violence is always the answer; they’re wrong”, Fox ran with the story “Krugman says violence is always the answer”, and the Times fired me.

* today's wire stories seem to be doing that thing they do where they say "after yesterday's horribly damning video!!!!" and then don't actually do a better job of giving the context in a story that's all about not giving the proper context. And then they all copy each other. Oh, the irony.

A right-wing blogger ran two minutes from a speech by the USDA Georgia director of farm aid, in which she said that 24 years ago, while working for a farmer advocacy group that focused on black farmers, was asked for help for by a white farmer and her first reaction was not to put the "full force" of what she could do behind him. The actual import of the speech was that working with him over the next two years showed her that she too was racist and that the real issue was not race, but poverty. The whole speech was an impassioned plea for more cooperation between races. Her transformation was particularly remarkable in that her father was killed by a white man for racial reasons, a white man who was never charged, and that led her to active participation in the civil rights movement in South Georgia.

I thought the fact that the NAACP immediately threw her under the bus was even more despicable than the Dems.

She was speaking at an NAACP event and told a story about how, after some ugly events in her own past, including a relative being lynched, she was initially reluctant when she joined the USDA and realized that she was being asked to help white farmers keep their land, but how she ended up having her eyes opened to her own biases and completely revising her approach/perspective.

Not exactly. Her father was murdered by the KKK, and she wasn't with the USDA at the time she was speaking of. She was working at a non-profit that helped black farmers. In fact, working against some of the USDA's more racist policies.

The whole speech makes a sort of beautiful "turn from the dark side" metaphor that the fact that this evil, racist fuck used it against her should make anyone with a shred of decency recoil in horror, Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal.

I had only read about it on Fox news, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised I didn't get the whole story.

I swear the Obama administration seems to want to go out of their way to appease the right wing for reasons that totally escape me. Gonna hate you no matter what you do, I don't think that's news.

Because we live in an age where calling bullshit, bullshit is the height of incivility.

Ginger, yes, that's the latest. See also Van Jones, ACORN, and reacting instead of leading on a million different things. Healthcare, welfare, patriot act, gay marriage, abortion... I stand by my vote for Obama, but I am becoming increasingly disillusioned and despondant. I know it's a hard job, but I think he's missed some key opportunities to shift our national debate. And race is one of those big areas.

I'm just tired.

Because we live in an age where calling bullshit, bullshit is the height of incivility.

I recall craxyness following Obama's eyerolling reaction to the Cambridge cop arresting Louis Gates Jr. in his own home. He called the incident/cop stupid and had to settle it with that fucking Beer Summit.

Or what Gud said. Gandhi may have said to make our enemies our allies, but it wasn't via compromising one's own values.

Her father was murdered by the KKK, and she wasn't with the USDA at the time she was speaking of. She was working at a non-profit that helped black farmers. In fact, working against some of the USDA's more racist policies.

Yes, thanks for the clarification.

Most of the speech is about her own history and journey. She seems quite awesome, and a great candidate for a civil rights position anyway.

TNC's link is here. [link] The story causing the furor is at about minutes 17 to 20.

Sherrod said she might not want her job back anyway considering how she'd been treated, and at least now she'd have some free time to hang out with that couple on their farm because she was long overdue for a visit

Heh. Nicely done.