Shirley Sherrod Backlash: Glenn Beck Joins Chorus Calling for Her Re-Hiring

(July 21) -- Shirley Sherrod, the black Agriculture Department official who was forced to resign after allegedly damning but incomplete footage surfaced of a speech she gave at an NAACP conference, suddenly has allies on both ends of the political spectrum. The NAACP, which had initially issued a statement denouncing Sherrod, now wants to see her rehired. But so does conservative Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck, who despite possibly going blind wants it known that he still knows injustice when he sees it, and thinks Sherrod should even get a promotion.

The belated support arrived after the full video of Sherrod's speech was released. In it, she began recalling an episode from 24 years ago (when she wasn't working for the USDA), admitting she once did less than she could have to help a white farmer because he was white. That's what led her knee-jerk superiors to call for her resignation. Reports The Huffington Post:

"According to Sherrod, she was given no chance to explain herself. 'They asked me to resign. And, in fact, they harassed me,' she said about a series of phone calls from USDA Deputy Undersecretary Cheryl Cook. Sherrod was in the middle of a long road trip, but pulled over after Cook insisted that she write her resignation via BlackBerry. She remembers being told, 'You're going to be on Glenn Beck tonight.'"

But even in the snippet of footage that was originally aired (by Matt Drudge former henchman Andrew Breitbart on his BigGovernment site), it was clear that the story was more complicated than what her weak-kneed superiors concluded. Before the clip ends, Sherrod makes it clear that the episode "opened my eyes"; she starts to make a point that it was wrong to judge people by their race and that poor folks of all colors needed to show solidarity. Sherrod later explained that in the remainder of her speech, which Big Government did not air (Breitbart says he received the video pre-edited, which gives you a sense of his journalistic integrity), she talked about how she went on to become good friends with this white farmer and helped him as best she could. The farmer's wife has backed up that account.

Sherrod admitted her mistake and then righted it. The chorus is growing for Cook, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and others involved in the decision to can Sherrod to now do the same.

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