Benen never skips and opportunity to fluff the Obama administration, but this is too much. Gibbs closes his comments by asking reporters sitting in front of him: "How did you all not ask the right questions?" In effect, blaming the media for Obama's screw-up. What a pathetic presidency this has become.

The press secretary also suggested that it's worth taking some time to consider how this mess happened in the first place -- and that includes reporters he was speaking to directly: "I think everybody has to go back and look at what has happened over the past 24 to 36 hours, and ask ourselves how we got into this. How did we not ask the right questions? How did you all not ask the right questions?"

They didn't ask the important first question. Who is pushing this story? Oh, Faux Noise and that alcoholic, lunatic Andrew Breitbart? It's a non-story. He's not trustworthy. It would have taken 15 seconds to clear it up.

NealB:
There is no blogger(where is the HuffPo guy?) to ask why they believed Faux Noise and Bozo Breitbart in the first place. Is he becoming the new Matt Drudge?

Allow me, please, to ask the right question.

How do you not know at this late date that the right wing is fundamentally dishonest????

The larger question is, how the f**k were you NOT prepared to handle another reich-wing attack?
THAT'S what I want to know. WTF, are you stupid?
They're coming after you every day, in every way. And, you're NOT prepared? How is THAT possible?
Jesus, wake up.

So is she going to be offered her job back? Because if the White House really wants to make this right, that would be, you know, kind of a necessary step.

As long as we liberals sit here and continue to blame the White House for this, Breitbart has won. Hands down, slam dunk victory for the conservatives here.

Scant news about the financial reform bill. No oil leak news. Unemployment aid? Nothing.

Nope. Everybody is blaming the president of the United States for a hatchet job a sewer rat did to stir up even more racial animosity.

Remember that time when, after it came out that deliberately false intelligence was used to justify the war in Iraq, all those conservatives turned on Bush/Cheney?

Neither do I.

I'm pleasantly surprised the White House press corps refrained from asking any questions about the incarceration of Lindsey Lohan. I honestly didn't think they had it in them.

How did we not ask the right questions? How did you all not ask the right questions?" -- Gibbs

Well, I know the answer to the second question: "we're not detectives; we're *reporters*. We don't ask any questions, right or wrong; we 'report' what we've been told". Like this:

http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/she-said-she-said-lyrics-the-beatles/5df1d47649d3bae948256bc20013bdda

"entirely because of the one subject the press corps was most interested in. The landmark Wall Street reform bill being signed into law?"

No. You don't get to do this. You've run six stories on this subject since yesterday. TPM has run ... well, I counted I think eleven stories on the news page, and I got up to ten entries on the front blog/chatter page before I lost count. You don't get to complain about the "MSM" caring more about Breitbart's latest lynching attempt than wall street reform or unemployment benefits when so do you, and so does TPM, and so does DailyKos, and so does...

Oh, and which got more pageviews, today? Your Breitbart stories? Or your "ANOTHER MILESTONE ACHIEVEMENT" story?

"What's more, note how that interest is manifesting itself. The media isn't excoriating Breitbart, digging to find the original source of the video, or noting the racist themes in far-right attacks of late. Instead, it seems news outlets are fascinated by process, demanding to know who knew what when"

Again: How was your reporting different? How was your TPM's reporting different? How was DailyKos's?

Your readers blame Obama for this, not the "media", not Breitbart, and so do all the progressive blogs. I don't think you're going to succeed at rolling that back.

I don't get why Gibbs is blaming the media. It was the Obama admin that took a Breitbart utterance as a fact. That's insane.

Let's hope they learned their damn less.

Chrenson is right. Yeah the administration screwed up, but the fire should be aimed at Breitbart and Fox news for smearing an innocent person. What we should be doing is destroying Breitbart as this is the 2nd falsified video. But hey, lets nail our own instead.

Does anyone here know how to play this game?

This fine woman should be rehired and promoted to high up in the USDA to prevent other events like this from recurring.

How much nonsense is this administration going to tolerate from the right? After all, the administration's rollout of the health care bill had its thunder stolen by the ridiculous flap over Henry Louis Gates and the Cambridge cop. So much so that the clear, careful enunciation of the policy--at the press conference where Obama's offhand remark on the police's 'stupidity' became the only news reported from it--was so deeply buried after that we still hardly know what his original intentions on the bill were.

NealB -- just for the record, doesn't this account have Gibbs first asking of the *White House* itself, "How did WE not get this right?" Now, let's hope the Administration actually does do some soul searching and resists the temptation to jump at Breitbart (et al.) bait like this again....

Look! Look! Look!
Shiny and bright, run it tonight!
We're loosing eyeballs to U tube/Pawn Stars/WWF Smackdown.

What? There's no missing blondes, cops with tasers, car chases? Well, MAKE SOMETHING UP, DAMMIT!

-And get it ready to air by five. . .

The White House is looking at an election in which its base is going to sit on its hands while the loons come out in droves, and what does it come with? An old white man fires a black woman whose father was murdered by the KKK. That's the way to inspire our voters.

I look at Vilsack and I see a spineless jellyfish. The administration needs to take some lessons from Alan Grayson.

I was actually embarrassed by the White House Press Corps today. But then again, I am embarrassed by them everyday. I knew that the majority of the questions were going to be about the firing of Shirley Sherrod and I also knew that most of the questions were going to be about PROCESS, feelings, and impressions.

When was the president briefed? What did he say? Was he angry? Is he going to give another speech about race? Why do you think there is so much talk about race these days? Why didn't someone step in sooner and stop this firing? Why wasn't she put on administrative leave? Why hasn't President Obama resolved the race issues we face in this country? Will Shirley Sherrod be invited to the White House for dinner? Will the president call her personally? Is the White House afraid of the right wing? Do you know that liberals and conservatives think you have handled this badly.

This of course is the "look at that shiny object" approach. Because while the press corps is busy questioning the handling of this incident by the White House, the attention is off of them. You would think the media had no part in this mess. They just reported what everybody else was reporting.

There is nothing about this story that resembles real journalism to me. The media needs to take a long look in the mirror. As Robert Gibbs said there were mistakes made by a lot of people. How many editors asked their reporters to verify the two minutes of tape before running with the story? Did anyone insist on seeing the entire speech initially? My guess is not that many.

The problem is that today the media is only interested in the negative angle of any story relating to the Obama White House. They actively look for the negative angle. There is apparently a negative angle to passing finreg.

It's been a pretty disgusting 48 hours. I think the statement from Benjamin Jealous of the NAACP was spot on:
-------------------------------------------
Next time we are confronted by a racial controversy broken by Fox News or their allies in the Tea Party like Mr. Breitbart, we will consider the source and be more deliberate in responding. The tape of Ms. Sherrod’s speech at an NAACP banquet was deliberately edited to create a false impression of racial bias, and to create a controversy where none existed. This just shows the lengths to which extremist elements will go to discredit legitimate opposition.
-------------------------------------------

It's a win-win for Breitbart, isn't it? He set up the administration, with a charge of racism against whites, knowing that this administration has to be constantly on guard against anything that smacks of that. (And they have to be constantly on guard because the Fox/Breitbart/Limbaugh cabal never stop accusing them of it!) Tada, they provoke an overreaction, and now everyone is blaming Obama for overreacting. Look, the administration was wrong here, but Breitbart was far more culpable. He attempted to hurt this administration by destroying a woman's career, and knowing that even if his deception was revealed the damage to her and to the administration would still be done. To hear the likes of Glenn Beck scolding Obama for this reminds me of the classic definition of chutzpah: "Don't hang me for murdering my parents, I'm a poor orphan!"

I agree with jjm, the media is engaged in full throated yellow journalism. Disney ESP needs to clean up it's act... Its degrading giving vent to patently false allegations ESP after they are Proven False. I would not let my kids watch GMA their reporting is shoddy.

The media must exercise restraint here... If the story is a lie or the tape has been edited... They should not broadcast it. if they can't tell, then they should do their homework.

because this worked... Now it will be fun with video editing time... Just like Letterman or SNL does... Except that the intent with the Republicans is to harm not to amuse.

Also, this discredits the media entirely when they know and someone is hurt.

AND It steps on a huge event...

get aware ABC you were used by Murdoch and crew, or their surrogates, if you like that feeling and ultimate loss of market share then If I would advise people to sell their stocks i'm Disney now.

Let me get something straight. Critics, especially from the left, believe the events of the past 24/36 hours is a failing of President Obama?

So these critics would have the President prioritize the personnel decisions regarding a USDA underling over, I don't know, anything else yesterday? So the President should make it a priority for everyone under him to get his ok on personnel matters? It's really difficult to explain the insanity of this critique.

JRinDallas, Thank you!

What is the point of this post? The White House Press Corp asks the White House Press Secretary the who, what, where, when and why questions about the White House's involvement in the story and we are told that the White House press corp screwed up by not attacking the real perps. Excuse me taking on the real perps is the job of the rest of the working press. The White House Press Corps beat is the White House after all.

I want to know why Breitbart has been given fluff interview after fluff interview on any number of channels for the last 24-36 hours. Nobody has asked the tough questions of that a**hole. Why hasn't anybody attempted to interview a Fox News spokesman abou their participation in the hatchet job. Those are questions the working reporters at CNN, the broadcast networks and the New York Times should be asking, but don't expect the White House Press Corp to do the heavy lifting on a story that isn't part of their beat.

The nagging part of this story is that it keeps relating back to the ACORN story. ACORN was taken down, in essence, "fired" by the malisciously edited video and they just rolled over. Where are the lawsuits by the people who lost their jobs, their services which ACORN provided, funding and who-knows-what-else? Breitbart et al got away with outright lies with false video and testimony and nothing happened to the perpetrators. We are much closer to the collapse of our country than most will admit. There is now a Tea Bag(sic)caucus in Congress. The financial world is in tatters and Elizabeth Warren is probably not going to get the job for which she is perfect because of the corruption in the White House (I love Obama, but he is more disappointing every day). The Senate Republicans/Blue Dogs are holding final votes on the unemployment extension bill for the 30 hour limit, because they can. The only voice of rage and reason is Alan Grayson, a freshman congressman. May God have mercy on your souls.

What amazes me is how badly all of this is handled by the Obama political team. The press secretary had an opening a mile wide. "We were crazy because we believed the liars Breitbart and Fox. We won't do that again." But, of course, they will, because they think they can win back some of the Fox audience. That is the Blue Dog mentality. They beg to be beaten, then roll on their backs and whimper.

The media isn't excoriating Breitbart, digging to find the original source of the video, or noting the racist themes in far-right attacks of late. Instead, it seems news outlets are fascinated by process, demanding to know who knew what when.

The press is continuing its job of sucking right wing dick. Yes, they're ignoring Breitbart's role, not following up on who edited this piece of shit, and in general following the right-wing narrative, beginning with "what a racist woman" and ending (so far) with "how incompetent is this administration," and "how come only the conservatives are reasonable about this one?"

Nothing strange there. The media only listens to the left when they complain about Obama.

Ya gotta love Alan Grayson.

And when is Shirley Sherrod replacing Tom Vilsack? If I were her, that would be my price.

I think it's quite obvious how this happened - overreaction to a situation without looking at the full picture. Who's fault is that? Whoever ran out there and started shooting without looking. Vilsack needs to be gone. He clearly is a reactionary.

Not discounting Breitbart's absolutely irresponsible "journalism", but that has been obvious to many from the beginning. Why did anyone respond like that again?

Any liberal political junkie worth his/her salt knows that every soundwave emanating from Breibart's corpus is a festering lie. Yet, here we have "Simple Tom" Vilsack (and possibly others) taking this hack job video as gospel and demanding Sherrod's resignation.

Did they even ask for her side of the story? It seems they were too worried about the "fallout" from the video airing on Fox, Beck, et al. Their actions belie their stinking fear of the rightwing noise machine.

That's what drives me crazy. Is Breitbart a scumbag? Of course. But it's hard to get all righteous and indignant about the shit Breitbart pulls when your own fucking party comes to heel before them not once, but twice (ACORN).

But what the hell? We're just a bunch of DFHs.

T-Rex: It's a win-win for Breitbart, isn't it?

And lose-lose for NAACP President Jealous who not only had a complete video that he might have reviewed himself or possibly even released, but who had sat in on the entire speech in the first place (or is that also not reliable?)

And everyone in the non-left can now hear her closing remarks in which she repeats the canard that the Tea Partiers are racists, and that opposition to Obamacare was racist. Everyone by now has heard the approving reception that NAACP gave to Sherrod's starting point of special treatment for African-Americans.

How many people in the US, before yesterday, had heard of the Pigford Case? In looks to me like good work by Sherrod and Sherrod, but the follow-on claims now amount to a surprising $1 Billion dollars.

Last note: not the events of the last 24-36 hours need to be reviewed, but the events of the last weeks. The "episode" began at least as early as the public NAACP consideration of its resolution against the racist elements of the Tea Parties.

MatthewRMarler wrote: "... the canard that the Tea Partiers are racists ..."

The Tea Partiers ARE racists. And worse. And their racism is being manipulated by the bought-and-paid-for corporate stooges who created the phony "astroturf" Tea Party "movement".

And you are well known on this site as a deliberate, malicious, conscienceless liar.

"So these critics would have the President prioritize the personnel decisions regarding a USDA underling over, I don't know, anything else yesterday? So the President should make it a priority for everyone under him to get his ok on personnel matters? It's really difficult to explain the insanity of this critique." -JRinDallas

Look, JR. Obama hired Vilsack, and whoever else in the White House OK'ed firing Sherrod. The buck stops with him. No, Obama should not have to monitor their "personnel matters" to prevent the kind of bungling that took place in his administration yesterday. So the question 'why has Obama put in place a staff that screwed this up so badly?' is a reasonable one. The criticism is warranted and denying it suggests ignorance, or blind obeisance to Obama.

It's difficult for you to explain the "insanity of this critique" because it's a reasonable one.

jjm: This fine woman should be rehired and promoted to high up in the USDA to prevent other events like this from recurring.

That's exactly what Vilsack is offering her.

Alli: Nothing strange there. The media only listens to the left when they complain about Obama.

And so many on the left just love to play along and give them exactly what they want.

I'm more than satisfied with the response.

The silver lining on all this is that Obama has gotten burned, not for angering the right wing megaphone, but for listening to it. That's a significant and important change.

As far as the Obama administration is concerned wrt Sherrod incident, shame on you. You just received a reminder lesson why due process exists and what can happen when it gets ignored. You gave the appearance of having done an investigation into the facts of the matter, when you hadn't. And that's just wrong. It's not the media's fault you behaved that way. It's on you.

Due process is a fundamental right. You ignored it, and you messed up. You deserve to be ridiculed and scorned for behaving that way. You need to remove a few people for making a terrible decision not to find out the facts first before acting, but you will have to do your due diligence on that yourself. You have people that have a problem following due process, and they need to go.

This country is a joke. Talk about fiddling while Rome burns.

We're all fucking slaves to our corporate masters.

the media is interested because

The story is about race. Race sells in America. Their dream headline: Obama's pregnant white mistress murdered. That would make them extremely profitable. Just look what OJ did for Ford Broncos, Inside Edition, and Nancy 'Hysterical is the norm' Grace. I'm surprised Fox or Palin hasn't made that one up yet.

Gibbs sounds to me like he's saying that "we" -- i.e., the White House -- jumped to conclusions. He then says that the press jumped to conclusions too. I'm not sure why people are getting from that that Gibbs/the WH are blaming the media rather than blaming themselves. It sounds like they are admitting they fucked up precisely by taking too seriously some cooked-up Fox nonsense, which is just what the critics here have been saying, and also just what Rachel Maddow said last night. In other words, you won. Your criticism stung, Gibbs admitted it, and they're fixing the fuckup. So why are you still mad?

Sherrod should get her job back. But that's not enough. Vilsack should walk the plank, and so should the fools at the White House who subordinated due process and common decency to politics.

As for Sherrod's being asked to pull over to the side of the road to take the phone call, she should not have been using her phone while driving.

Not enough discussion of Breitbart in the media.
James: If she was called, then there's no reason to think it's likely she was already talking and got call waiting. More likely took the call itself and thought it was really important. (The sort who doesn't call out, just takes them.)

And two major points:
1. Maybe they aren't down on Breitbart and the deliberate and dishonest nature of this right-wing smear machine, but at least Obama's team changed course pretty much 180 in one day. They apologized to Sherrod, offered her job back - how many commenters here were predicting the Admin would do that and so swiftly?
2. Re complaints the liberal bloggers are not reporting this much better than SCLM - rubbish. The former are all over the Breitbart angle, comparison to the ACORN fiasco, etc. Yes it's distracting from the accomplishments of O-Team but we need to hear about what the enemies of the public interest are doing, and why. There is space for both.

The story is about race. Race sells in America. Their dream headline: Obama's pregnant white mistress murdered.[...] I'm surprised Fox or Palin hasn't made that one up yet.
Posted by: John Henry on July 21, 2010 at 7:46 PM

Well, it's too unlikely, even for Faux. Much more likely: "Michelle Obama and his (white) pregnant mistress conspire to emasculate the President. 'we thought the louse needed to learn a lesson' the two women say"

This is basically a fraud case. Breitbart deceived people into believing that Ms. Sherrod was a racist when she was not. Like a fraud, there are victims of the crime. While the victims of a fraud are sometimes reproached for their gullibility, naïveté, etc (with the exception of Ms. Sherrod, of course), the victims of a fraud are not the ones who go to jail. The fraudster does.

Breitbart has no business being heard in American public life. If an actual criminal or civil prosecution is possible, he should feel it. He's the person to blame here. Don't lise sight of that.

Rats. Should have read "don't lose sight of that." Stubby fingers and an iPhone are a risky combination.

If I left Neil B with the impression that I thought Sherrod was already talking on the phone when the "pull over" call reached her. I was using "using" in the sense of answering the phone while behind the wheel and moving. In my opinion, all cell phones should be off while in an automobile.

Although I share with others their ire at Breitbart, I think the worst aspect to this mess is how cravenly the Obama Administration reacted. Our rights are indivisible from Sherrod's, and Obama is supposed to administer justice vigorously and fairly. He did neither in this case. H subordinated justice to public relations, and didn't give Sherrod the benefit of a even a kangeroo court. He listened to Fox News, shuddered at what he heard, believed it was true without verifying the facts (is that what he was taught at Harvard Law?), and told Sherrod to be on the next caboose out of town. That must have heartened Cheney.

I'm tired of people blaming the Obama Administration and the NAACP for what happened to Ms. Sherrod. The greater problem is that political news coverage has become a joke. Everyone's in such a frenzy to be the "one" who broke a scandal that there is no more actual journalism going. WH Press briefings is now light watching TMZ.

Wallstreet reform legislation was signed into law, and what is everyone talking about?--first a racist USDA employee and then how the Administration wronged an innocent middle-aged black woman.

And everyone in the non-left can now hear her closing remarks in which she repeats the canard that the Tea Partiers are racists, and that opposition to Obamacare was racist. Everyone by now has heard the approving reception that NAACP gave to Sherrod's starting point of special treatment for African-Americans.

We're all used to you lying to carry water for the Republican Party's warmongering wing, its anti-regulation wing and of course its sweet, sweet tax cut wing, Marler, but now you're lying in favor of its racist wing. Shame on you.

The "episode" began at least as early as the public NAACP consideration of its resolution against the racist elements of the Tea Parties.

Yeah -- the NAACP rightly took up a resolution condemning the actual racism of the Tea Partiers -- racism which surprises no one, since they're made up of the more radical fringe of the neo-Confederate, post-Southern Strategy Republican Party -- and so Breitbart decided, as usual, to engage in some dishonest propagandizing in order to create a phony "both sides do it!" narrative that's so beloved of the lazy so-called "liberal media."

And you've been here chortlingly pushing the right's rancid, rotten garbage no matter how many times you're called out on it by your betters.

No one mistakes you for a good faith commentor, Marler, but your shameless repetition of bullshit in defense of racist lies is low even for you.

Jackass.

To echo (and augment) what was said earlier: The administration was stupid to do what they did and I'm glad they reversed course. However, that is not nearly as important as the part of the story that's getting buried, which is that Andrew Breitbart is a serial liar and professional smear artist. He should be destroyed. Sue him for libel, harass him in every way possible, follow him around with cameras 24x7. Ruin him. He's a piece of human garbage, and it's time to take out the trash.

Maybe the Obama administration reacted so quickly because it knew the NAACP is filled with racists and just assumed the video would reveal even more evidence of anti-white hatred.

It explains the knee-jerk reaction of separating themselves so quickly. They ignored the ACORN stuff why not ignore this if they knew it wasn't true?

Revealing.

Revealing indeed. You've revealed yourself as a racist scumbag. You sound just like Breitfart, and will be treated as such around here.

Three points that shouldn't be missed:

1) It's not enough to punish vice. It's also necessary to reward virtue. Shep Smith -- on FOX, no less -- said he didn't run the clip because ""we did not and do not trust the source." Hell, even Beck was on the side of the angels when this finally got to him.

Give credit where it's due. That provides traction later.

2) If you're going to beat the bad guys, you have to recognize what they do well. Breitbart's pivot that he hadn't actually attacked Sherrod, because his target was really the AUDIENCE, is critical.

The NAACP is still playing Breitbart's game -- first attacking Sherrod (who, after all, was INVITED to speak by the NAACP -- isn't there anybody whose first instinct was to stick up for her??), then flipflopping to offer him their rather large target once more.

3) The best defence is a good offense (good hitting beats good pitching, and vice versa -- or more precisely, good hitting WHEN YOU NEED IT will always beat good pitching: Nothing wrong with winning 1-0 or 2-1).

Breitbart's standard technique is epitomized in the ACORN story, where heavily edited videotapes purport to show ACORN employees, notably Juan Carlos Vera, helping a criminal conspiracy.

Vera is suing Breitbart, O'Keefe and Giles (among others) because what actually happened was that after having these assholes in his office, Vera called the cops.

It makes sense for Vera to wait on the slow grinding of the law, although he's reportedly only suing for $75k.

But if you really wanted to crush Breitbart, you'd have news stories that show VIDEO of how he portrayed Vera as complicit in a faked crime -- yet Vera actually called the cops to have O'Keefe and Giles charged with human trafficking, the crime they claimed to be committing.

In fact, when the pair claimed that Giles needed to get away from her abusive pimp Vera immediately offered to call the cops while they were in his office. "Don't call the police because I'm gonna be a lawyer," O'Keefe said in the video."

You know, the part of the video Breitbart edited out. Those tapes were only released when California offered immunity to the perps.

So it's not enough to bitch about Fox or Beck (see #1), much less to stand around looking backwards while these evil fucks move on (see #2).

Use their own actions to BRAND these guys.

Somebody should put together an honest video indictment which produces RESULTS -- making sure that O'Keefe never gets a license to practice law, and that the first news reaction next time Breitbart promotes a video is to investigate HIM.

It's not exactly true that fighting Breitbart with publicity only helps him. Done right, it will make him toxic, even for Fox. Nobody would use an al Qaeda or KKK video at face value -- that's what should happen now with Breitbart.

Just found this oh-so-charming puff piece on Andrew Breitbart at ABC News. This week of all weeks, ABC News runs a puff piece on Andrew Breitbart. A puff piece on Andrew Breitbart.

A. Puff. Piece. On. Andrew. Breitbart.

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/andrew-breitbart-nightline-terry-moran-interview/story?id=11220699

Ohhhhh, how I long for the days of JournoList when all of the country's liberal journalists banded to gether to squash stories like Andrew Breitbart. You know, like they did when they created a total and comprehensive media blackout of the good Reverend Wright? I mean, I don't even know who the guy is because of that.