Protect Thy Image at Any Cost

Sure, Breitbart is a right wing scum bag who lied, cheated, and deliberately defamed the character of Shirley Sherrod, an amazing, intelligent woman of rich character and humility, simply to embarrass the President and seek revenge against he NAACP for stating the obvious- the Tea Party displays racial bigotry at most of their rallies. 

But the Administration was equally unethical in their actions as they aided and abetted the lynching of Shirley before the truth was known. The President is so fixated on being scandal free, no member of the administration is beyond a risk of the being tossed under the bus when perception is reality, and truth is just too slow and too politically damaging to endure while being sought after.

Van Jones and ACORN are off in the ditch as well. Rather than stand up to the lies and fight these slanderous scum bags, the President appears to see these temporary embarrassments as collateral damage that must be tolerated to keep the ship of state on course for the really important stuff. Well Mr. President, I disagree. Nothing is more important than seeking the truth and debunking slanderous attacks against people, especially friends and colleagues. By repeatedly throwing his team under bus, his core leadership skills are brought into question. Someday, he may turn around and find nobody standing behind him.

While the press hasn’t even hinted at a similarity to the Reverend Wright fiasco, I’d like to bring that sordid affair back to point out that it may have been an early warning indicator of how Barrack Obama manages his image while thumping over the people he tosses under his bus. Rev Wright was summarily denounced by then Senator Obama when a 10 second clip of a video showed the Reverend saying, “… not God Bless America, …God Damn America…” Few, if any people, took the time to watch and listen to the entire sermon.  Sound familiar? The outcry of disgust from all political directions for Wright daring to utter a profanity against America was beyond repair, and the sound bite was just too politically damaging for the young Senator to even attempt to come to the defense of the man who married him.

I watched the full video of Reverend Wright's sermon. It was classic fire and brimstone black rhetoric, aimed at an audience of African Americans who understood the message, and who had lived the words of his message. And what was the message?  Simply this- a country founded in slavery, where slaves were 3/5ths of a human, where white people fought and died for preservation of slavery, a country that wrote “Jim Crowe” laws to institutionalize a post slavery two class system for over a hundred years, a country that denied free blacks even the right to vote, and lynched them for trying- is not righteous behavior. And Reverend Wright asked the congregation- can God bless America for those injustices? Is this behavior and actions of a people that God should bless? No, God damns America for those injustices and so should every American. 

That was the message that earned the Reverend national disgrace with Barack Obama leading he charge. He was the first body thrown under the bus, and Shirley Sherrod won't be the last as long as the ethic of political image trumps the ethic of truth.