A White House consumed with race

For the life of me, I can’t understand this White House when it comes to racial politics.

They just can’t seem to leave well enough alone.

As if the incident between Harvard Professor Henry Gates Jr. and a
Boston police officer didn’t teach this administration enough about
trying to show the country just how wise this president is when it
comes to singling out black/white episodes and imposing his own brand
of justice, we now have yet another one. This time, the zeal to uncover
an injustice when nothing existed has trickled down to the Department
of Agriculture.

By now, Pundits Blog readers are familiar with the story involving ousted USDA official Shirley Sherrod for comments she allegedly made regarding not doing enough to help white farmers seeking federal assistance. “What [the farmer] didn’t know while he was taking all that time trying to show me he was superior to me was,” Sherrod was recorded as saying in a recent speech to the NAACP (which is an arm of the DNC), “I was trying to decide just how much help I was going to give him.”

It was later learned her comments were taken out of context, but not before conservatives and liberals alike used the vignette to score points on both sides of the racial divide. Many groups didn’t bother to learn all the facts before hurling accusations. The Democratic Party’s NAACP was against Sherrod before they were for her. They should know better; after all, she did speak at one of their functions. Even White House press secretary Robert Gibbs admonished the media for not asking the right questions, paternally claiming this to be a “teachable moment” for all involved. Please. It was this same administration that, just hours before, had to eat crow and apologize to Sherrod for running her out of her job on a rail so quickly her head was spinning.

If the White House was so measured in its approach, then why the need for the Agriculture secretary himself to call Sherrod personally to apologize? Didn’t the White House learn its own lesson months before with Boston? Just who was teaching whom, Mr. Gibbs?

The point here is: This episode was more about questionable fact-gathering and amateur journalism than the ugly face of racism. Yet it’s symptomatic of a White House that is utterly consumed with race and all things racial. They see virtually everything through that prism, even when criticizing the other party through the likes of RNC Chairman Michael Steele. It’s to the point where it’s clearly distracting and often embarrassing. I’d like to think the president and his team will learn from this mistake, but maybe the third time’s the charm when it comes to race-baiting.

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