Yes, Fox News, Breitbart, and their ilk are the bad guys in the Shirley Sherrod incident. But why does the Obama administration lack gumption? Would Ronald Reagan have cowered in this fashion? Do we want a leadership whose first impulse is to cower? Who then has to apologize for cowering?
Why wasn't the Obama administration initially angry or at least skeptical? Why did they instantly go into panic mode instead? God forbid Glenn Beck should run a story! Oh noes! As it is, Beck then does run a story, and it's about the unfairness of the firing. What poetic justice! Beck has the truth, and Obama has the fear.
There's something deeply wrong with the administration, despite all of its accomplishments and its good intentions. They are like Dukakis refusing to say he'd get angry if his wife were raped. Yes, Dukakis is a fine man and would have been a decent President, but he failed an elemental test--of sticking up for your own. Obama and his people just failed the same test. Is it too late for me now to switch my vote to Hillary in the primary? Can you imagine a Hillary Clinton administration making this mistake? During the primary, Clinton said that under pressure Obama would "fold like a paper doll." And voila!
This may be the best Presidency since JFK, but there can be no doubt now that there is something morally and spiritually amiss at the heart of it. In A Day at the Races, someone asks Groucho if he's "a man or a mouse"? Groucho replies, "Put a piece of cheese on the floor and you'll find out." We just found out about the Obama administration.