Giles on Sherrod case: Just the facts, Ma'am

(CBS)  A political firestorm has contributor Nancy Giles asking a few questions:

"Just the facts, Ma'am." How many times did Joe Friday from "Dragnet" make that simple request?

And why didn't ANYONE act like Sgt. Friday and get the facts, before forcing Shirley Sherrod to resign her post with the Agriculture Department?

Here's a fact ... this past Monday conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart slimed Shirley Sherrod by publishing a little more than 2 minutes of a 43-minute speech she made at an NAACP banquet last March, saying it was proof that she AND the NAACP were racist.

That clip, we now know, completely misrepresented her and her story.

But it spread like a cyber-virus.

In a matter of hours, Shirley Sherrod was attacked by politicians, denounced by pundits, criticized by that same NAACP, and told to resign her post, immediately - to literally pull over to the side of the road and submit her resignation on her Blackberry.

I guess she should be grateful they didn't send a patrol car to arrest her for texting while driving.

What's so sad about all this is the story Shirley Sherrod tells, the story that was left on the cutting room floor, is SO compelling - including her father's murder, by a white man, when she was a teenager, and her decision to stay in the South, confront her own misconceptions about race and class, and work for change.

'I've come a long way," she told her audience in the unedited video of the speech: "As my mother has said to so many, 'If we had tried to live with hate in our hearts we'd probably be dead now.' But I've come to realize that we have to work together, because we have to overcome the divisions that we have."

So now what? What do we take from this past week's tempest in a Tea Party?

One is that people can change. The late Robert Byrd is proof of that. In 1958, when he was first elected U.S. Senator from West Virginia, he supported the Ku Klux Klan. But he changed.

In 2005 he said, "I know I was wrong. Intolerance has no place in America."

When Senator Byrd died earlier this summer, President Obama said this about him: "Like our nation itself, Robert Byrd possessed that quintessential American quality, and that is a capacity to change, a capacity to learn, a capacity to listen, a capacity to be made more perfect."

Shirley Sherrod possesses that capacity.

Don't we all?

Race exists, but racism doesn't have to.

Maybe we can all decide to listen more, talk less, and just "get the facts."

[myth1958]

Ms Giles has always had a strong voice, tempered by the life experiences she makes use of to put forth compelling arguments about the issues of the day. Here, however, I feel she has erred: "Race exists, but racism doesn't have to." I respectfully disagree. Race - the unscientific notion of concurrent evolutions of **** sapiens, producing more than one "race" of people - is a fallacy which DNA testing (among other things) has shown to be a lie. There are no multiple races of people just like there isn't a multitude of Gods: a Jewish one; a Muslim one; a Christian one. There is only God. Likewise, there exists only one form of human. Not a black one, a brown one, a white one. Race theory - which our own Thomas Jefferson helped to promote - is straight from the realm of ignorance. Ms. Giles ought to know better. Indeed.

[larrylinn1]

Thank you, Nan Giles. I watched Shirley Sherrod?s speech. It was positive and redeeming.
The ethical failure by Andrew Breitbart is larger than journalistic ethics. It should apply to every public expression. The attitude which created this mess reminds me of a statement by Herbert Spencer, "There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance; that principle is contempt prior to investigation."

[becivil]

Here's a fact, Nancy... your comment that the Sherrod incident was a "tempest in a tea party" was a not so subtle insinuation that the Tea Party was somehow involved, is that sticking to the facts or is that a smear?

[tsigili]

No one knows what the "truth" is.........it depends on who is in charge, you know, and not the facts.

[JavMD]

I would think more than 'half' the readers do NOT even know who "Joe Friday" is...

CBS TV ... what c r ap tv shows you put on... put on shows like 'Father Knows Best", Dragnet...

instead lousy reality... WE NEED TO influence very young people in watching those shows... LASSIE etc..

Get to the kids in kindergarten and elementary schools and the next generation won't be doing drive by killings or doing drugs as much.

Instead, they don't go to the baseball parks and play ball, rather pick up video games

[pavedave]

Joe Friday never said just the facts. Look up Dragnet on Wikipedia.

[bb911s]

No one seems to be asking how many "white" people she did not help prior to her epiphany! No one is asking about her comment "turned over to his kind" No one is mentioning the comment "struggle between have's and have nots." Few are mentioning the applause at the NAACP convention. There is more here than just a short clip, and enough blame to go around. The only people with enough power to fire her was the corrupt Obama regeime and they did because they were afraid of Glenn Beck. A laughable group of incompetent boobs playing house with the USA/

[taxchurches]

"conservative blogger"

This alone makes it apparent that anything he wrote would be a lie.

I find it interesting that any time the Obama administration screws something up, Bush-Cheney trolls pop out of the woodwork to snicker. If Obama is eventually exposed to be the devil himself, it in no way alters the utter catastrophe of Bush-Cheney. And they know that; their thinly-veiled hope is that it simply makes the last GOP administration look a little less malicious and incompetent. Sorry, but it isn't working.

[roxiqualls]

Is this just another fact? From former chairwoman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, Mary Frances Berry;
"Tainting the tea party movement with the charge of racism is proving to be an effective strategy for Democrats. There is no evidence that tea party adherents are any more racist than other Republicans, and indeed many other Americans. But getting them to spend their time purging their ranks and having candidates distance themselves should help Democrats win in November. Having one?s opponent rebut charges of racism is far better than discussing joblessness."

[alanrobisch]

As usual the lady got it wrong. First breitbart included on his web site the fact that she changed. Seems nobody on the left or right noticed. He did not say she was a racist. His point was that she was cheered by the crowd for her initial racist reaction to helping the farmer because he was white. He stated that she was not important to his story. It seems this lady couldn't get the facts herself.

Its not surprising since Howard Dean made mistakes in a very similar way. It almost seems nobody has this story straight even now.

[jusathot]

Alan, please go back to his original speech. He is trying to rewrite the story now. We need to learn to double check everybody.

[icetrout]

It's OK to RACE BAIT if your a Negro just like Jesse & Al!!!

[love2ridend]

Exactly the two main reasons I could never ever vote for a Democrat because to me they are the face of Democratic party.

[jusathot]

Do you mean "if you're a Negro..."? What is race bait?