Farmer's wife says fired USDA official helped save their land

[Sgt. McGee 27]

In other words - honesty should take second place to being political correctness.

Well, yeah. Those are the rules as they've been established by those who control the discourse. It sucks.

PS - I don't think that she should have lost her job for saying those things. I honestly don't. I do think she HAD to lose her position once those things were covered the way they were. It's unfair of the media to have made such a big deal over it, but making those comments + the news coverage = she's gotta be removed from her role.

I don't doubt that these sorts of things happen all the time without people making speeches about it, but once it hits the media (for better or for worse), the situation changes.

[chri'stina 190]

Ok I read the first page, I didn't read all the following comments(except the last page or so). It appears to me that she was telling a story about her struggle to help a white farmer back then because of personal racial issues, but it also appears that she was sharing it as a way to say she had been wrong to base something on race instead of a person, regardless of race. I have not watched the video.

[HAL 9000 96]

I like living in the moment of not having an opinion on this, by not reading it yet, so I can just say random opinions about OT!

Well...since you suggested it so nicely, maybe, just maybe I will go back and read.

You know I'm a nice AI.

I did re-post a couple of times the pertinent text FNC obviously manipulated in the video format. Its pretty telling the lows bad journalists will go to to force a story through to those most prone to being frenzied into false outrage. Sad.

Ok I read the first page, I didn't read all the following comments(except the last page or so). It appears to me that she was telling a story about her struggle to help a white farmer back then because of personal racial issues, but it also appears that she was sharing it as a way to say she had been wrong to base something on race instead of a person, regardless of race. I have not watched the video.

Pretty much.

[Peikko 1,575]

You read a lot into people's statements. I don't care? Who said?

I did read the full transcript, and yes, she's interesting. She'd probably make a great advocate or public speaker about overcoming one's biases to serve people more effectively. There's definitely a place for her in a ton of non-profit or government or private organizations. One of those places is NOT in a position to decide who gets what service. I don't know if she should have been fired (I don't think so, actually), but she should have been removed from her position of influence based on her statements. It's part of having a professional responsibility to comport oneself in a particular way, and if you create the perception that your judgement is tainted, you should not be in a position in which that is an issue.

Unrelated, but related anecdote: my wife and I are trying to hire someone to perform our public marriage ceremony, because we had a private, small civil ceremony in order to start our paperwork. We wanted someone who speaks both English and Czech, so that her family would be able to understand the ceremony, and a friend suggested a judge that they know, who also performed their marriage. Because the judge is not authorized to perform a marriage in our state (he's from DC), he said he would have to decline EVEN THOUGH WE'RE ALREADY MARRIED. He discussed the issue with his ethics council, and they advised him that it was not a good idea to even create the perception that he is performing a marriage where he's not authorized to do so. Why? Because judges are held to a particular standard, and this would not reflect well upon his standing. In the same way (this is the related part), Sherrod has/had a responsibility to demonstrate a particular sort of behavior as appropriate to her job responsibilities.

Of course, you'll dismiss all of this as racist, or ignorant, or whatever, and probably sprinkle it with passive-aggressive implications that I'm a slave owner, or some such, but the point is, you can't just say or do whatever you want, whenever you want, to whomever you want, and expect that there will be no consequences. I agree that she seems like an interesting lady, and I'd love to have a chance to talk with her about her experiences, and her change of heart, but once that perception of biased decision making is created, she has limited her ability to be effective at that job.

ETA: I didn't even get to finish typing this before you jumped back in accusing everyone having a different opinion as being "jaundiced". You are really a piece of work.

To the bolded, yes I am, thank you.

As to your response, what you are saying is that people who hold positions of responsibility should be held accountable for all their opinions from birth? That's a bit mad - the woman quite clearly learned a very important lesson about bigotry and yet the fact that she once held a bigoted view (self confessed I might add, not something she was 'forced' to reveal) clouds her ability to make fair judgments for the rest of her life? Brilliant.

No, I don't think you are a racist, but you are ignorant if you truly believe that everyone should be held to such standards because what you will get is a lot of lying - and oh yes, American politics is full of that already.

Once again, the point of the story was that she made a bad judgement and realized this when confronted with a real life situation.

Noone here would have heard of this woman if she had kept that story to herself. The message this kind of reaction sends out is - if you have any skeletons in your closet, no matter how small, don't bring them out into the open because they'll be used against you.

In other words - honesty should take second place to being political correctness.

Oh, the irony!

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Propagandistic media at its finest. But hey ho, at least Fox is there to counter the dishonest liberal media. Beautiful.

[HAL 9000 96]

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

Propagandistic media at its finest. But hey ho, at least Fox is there to counter the dishonest liberal media. Beautiful.

Well, thank goodness for Fox to keep the liberal media on the straight and narrow. Whatever would we do without them?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Watch CNN I guess.

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

That pinko channel? Sheesh.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

[HAL 9000 96]

You may as well have said ' listen to N-P-R' and caused a brain aneurysm in some of FNCs viewers!

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I'm surprised people don't get an aneurism watching Fox. All that outrage and fist shaking.

[chri'stina 190]

We mostly watch CNN for news. But sometimes my husband watches Fox News. I think my husband is an intelligent person, and yeah he doesn't agree with every thing they talk about on there, but if he wants to watch some he does. I don't care. I wouldn't say Fox is our top source for news and my husband wouldn't defend it to the death since we watch The Situation Room on CNN much more often.

[HAL 9000 96]

I'm surprised people don't get an aneurism watching Fox. All that outrage and fist shaking.

Don't confuse aneurysms with neuronal toxicity.

[Peikko 1,575]

Nothing wrong with watching whatever one likes - although personally I find all the news networks on TV get caught up in emotional invective rather than adopting a more neutral stance - seems that's what the public likes - they all do the 'you'll never guess what XXXX said/did' and all the other drivel. Personally, I find it insulting, I can work out for myself what to think about a story.