A White House official insists that the White House didn't pressure Shirley Sherrod to resign, or pressure USDA chief Tom Vilsack to fire her, over the Andrew Breitbart video allegedly showing her claiming she didn't help a white farmer 24 years ago because of racial reasons.
"We did not pressure USDA or Ms. Sherrod," the White House official emails me. Ben Smith was told something similar.
Maybe so. What else did we expect them to say?
It was infuriating this morning watching Morning Joe lay the entirety of the blame at the feet of the White House, with Mark Halperin going so far as to claim this will hurt the Democrats in the midterms, when the news media -- and especially MSNBC -- bought into Breitbart's lies from the very beginning. As I wrote yesterday, Margaret Carlson and others on Morning Joe were flabbergasted by the edited Sherrod footage. "Look at that woman! Aren't you ashamed?!" Carlson said.
Insofar as the administration pushed her out of her job over this, the White House was duped and acted in a kneejerk fashion. But so did the news media until CNN aired its interview with Sherrod and the Spooners.