Shirley Sherrod: 'They Made Me Quit Because I was Going to Be On Glenn Beck'

Shirley Sherrod defended herself today from charges of racism stemming from the video released on Big Government yesterday.

The video showed Ms Sherrod, USDA Georgia Director of Rural Development, speaking at an NAACP Freedom Fund dinner in Georgia. Ms Sherrod, who is a federally appointed bureaucrat lays out in shockingly lays out that how race played a part in executing her duties.

Sherrod was forced to resign almost immediately after the video was posted. Incredibly, it seems however that her firing was less about what she said in the speech, and more about the story being broadcast on Fox News.

In interviews today, Ms Sherrod describes what was behind her speech and how, after the video cuts off, she explains that moment was a turning point in her life where she learned to beyond race.

She said the whole video would reveal that she eventually came to work closely with the white farmer and that she was trying to impart a lesson about how important it is to get “beyond the issue of race.”

“I went on to work with many more white farmers,” she said. “The story helped me realize that race is not the issue.”

Sherrod told CNN that she was forced to resign because “you’re going to be on Glenn Beck tonight.” While she was driving home from work last night Sherrod told CNN that Cheryl Cook, the deputy undersecretary for Rural Development, called her three times on “harassing” her with warnings about the attention she was going to receive after the video surfaced. On the final call Cook demand that she pull over to the side of the road and resign electronically then and there.

“They were not interested in hearing the truth. No one wanted to hear the truth,” she said in an interview Monday morning.

Sherrod also struck out at the the NAACP, which put out a statement condemning her for her remarks and then retracted it. She says the NAACP never contacted her and that if it wasn’t for the NAACP/Tea Party fight she wouldn’t have been forced to resign.

If this story is true, and there is no reason to doubt her, it shows the extent that Breitbart, Fox,and the Tea Party have gotten under the skin of the White House. Rather then to think it through they overreacted and forced Sherrod to pull over on the side of the road and resign without telling her side of the story.

It is also hard to understand why the NAACP would instantly condemn Ms Sherrod, if the speech was indeed as she said, why wouldn’t they respond by releasing the entire speech? One explanation may be that she is lying, but if you listen closely to the end of the clip she does seem to be pivoting toward saying it was about income not race (and then seems to change her mind again).

Another explanation for the White House and the NAACP not releasing the entire tape is the possibility that Shirley Sherrod is their sacrificial lamb. Possibly they do not care about the truth. Perhaps they realized their resolution attacking the Tea Party as racist was such a political loser, especially coming right after disclosure of DOJ Black Panther scandal, they see the condemnation of Sherrod as a way out of theses crises and seem racially balanced.

Either way Shirley Sherrod is the victim of a White House so incredibly thin skinned, so frighted of the media and the citizens of the United States who believe these words written by William Shakespeare “Tell truth and shame the devil“