More often than not in television, smart producers save on-air personalities from stupid gaffes. Such was not the case this week on the Greta Van Sustern show. The Fox “News” talk show host is an attorney smart enough to realize that a facelift was required for her to succeed on TV. I’m not saying she was ugly. Just ordinary—a condition that plagued me, especially in the latter years of my CNN career when droopy jowls began getting in the way of my shoulders. Unfortunately, my facelift failed to bring me fame and fortune.

But enough about me. Let’s cut to the chase and Fox’s monumental goof of mistaking Shirley Sherrod for U.S. Representative Maxine Waters, the California Congresswoman under investigation for an ethics violation. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/03/greta-van-susteren-sick-o_n_668829.html

The inability of Fox “News” to distinguish between Sherrod and Waters seems symbolic. It is a symptom of the networks underlying attitude toward African-Americans, and President Obama in particular. Time and again, Fox anchors, talk show personalities and pundits have been guilty of subtle racism. And in some instances—hello, Glenn Beck—not so subtle racist comments. During lulls in parroting Republican propaganda, the network acts as an outlet for misinformation spread by right-wing blogger Andrew Breitbart, the source of the out-of-context video that set off a storm surrounding Shirley Sherrod.

Fox denies using the video prior to her resignation as the top USDA official in her native state of Georgia. The edited video distorted an inspirational story she told of helping a white farmer. It was changed to a story of revenge. Displaying a level of stupidty equal to that of Glenn Beck, a Department of Agriculture official in Washington demanded Sherrod’s resignation.

Fox’s denial of jumping the gun on the story is almost true. The video did not air before the resignation, although its existence was disclosed on Fox.com and aired on the Bill O’Reilly show, which was taped earlier in the day. In effect, the over-reaction of the Obama Adminstration saved Fox from itself.

The good fortune of the network in escaping Andrew Breitbart’s racism does not change the past. Breitbart is the same guy who produced altered video that pushed the black activist organization, ACORN, into bankruptcy. And a crazy woman who hosts an afternoon talk show on Fox has been obsessed with the failure of the U.S. Department of Justice to collect a judgment against dirt poor Black Panthers in an uncontested civil case involving voter intimidation.

President Obama’s former pastor in Chicago, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and an obscure administration ”czar” named Van Jones have also been on the Fox hit list. Jones quit his enviromental czaring job after a couple of minor indiscretions in the 1990’s caused Glenn Beck several weeks of insane wild-eyed drooling. The Reverand Wright got the Fox “News” treatment because of irrational sermons that suggested he was slipping into dementia.

With Fox’s history, its too bad that Greta Van Sustern is victimized by people who can’t tell one African American from another. I could understand Sarah Palin making such a mistake. In Wasilla, Alaska, she rarely saw a black face. Although I only encountered Van Sustern a couple of times when she worked for CNN, my impression was she did not make stupid mistakes.

And speaking of stupidity, I can’t pass up the opportunity to mention Sharron Angle—the Nevada Tea Party heroine, who was supposed to send U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid into retirement. Instead, she seems determined to get him re-elected. Reid’s rescue is aided by Angle’s mouth. Everytime she opens it near a TV camera, he is assured of more votes. 

For example, Angle claims that people collecting unemployment are “spoiled,” supports phasing out Social Security and recently refused to answer questions at a news conference she called. But the topper came during a friendly Fox interview when Angle stated that reporters should only ask questions she wanted to answer and report news that she endorsed.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/03/angle-the-press-should-as_n_668521.html

Unlike Greta Van Sustern, Angle can’t blame  blunders on technicians, stupid aides or advisors. All by herself, she has mastered dumbness.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

I don’t mean to abuse the 12-Step analogy, but CNN needs some sort of treatment for its obsessive coverage of “Breaking News.” The network’s reporting of the Shirley Sharrod scandal is a classic example of overkill. By the time the weekend rolled around, CNN viewers began losing interest in Sherrod. This is unfortunate because there are facets of the story that extend beyond her heroic personal story.

Although the Sharrod debacle is largely about race and racism, the humiliation heaped on the USDA official is also about journalism. Before I take cheap shots at Fox “News,” let me point out the shortcomings of my former place of employment. CNN exploited Sherrod for more sinister reasons than taking up the banner of a wronged person. And I’m referring to something more than its hope for increasing ratings. For the people who underwrote my IRA, it was an opportunity to dump on Fox by pointing the finger of blame to the people who gave the story momentum.

The real blame, of course, falls on the shoulders of Andrew Breitbart, the right-wing rumor-monger whose fantasies are published on his Internet news sites and repeated by the lunatic fringe ad nauseam. He distributed out-of-context remarks made by in a speech to an NAACP gathering in Sherrod’s native Georgia. The African American agriculture official— daughter of a farmer murdered by white men, who were never prosecuted—told the story of how years before a poor, elderly white couple on the verge of losing their farm helped her deal with underlying racial prejudice she harbored since childhood. The Breitbart video only showed the part of her speech about Sharrod’s early attitudes toward whites.

Libel litigation is a pet peeve of mine—mainly because I had to defend myself in eight cases that I can recall. The only one settled in favor of the plaintiff was the most trivial. The Boston TV station I worked for was in the process of being sold and lawyers recommended a few thousand dollars be paid to dispose of the case. But no matter how frivolous, defending against libel is a time-consuming distraction. In Breitbart’s instance, I hope Sharrod carves a big chunk out of his derriere. Thes distribution of the video clip was clearly done maliciously without regard for truth. And he will have a hard time defending the story as being opinion, which has broader protections under libel and defamation laws.

That brings me to the subject of stupid tricks by anchors. Unfortunately, technology has not been developed to stop the lips of news anchors from flapping when they deviate from the teleprompter. In the course of CNN’s saturation coverage of Sharrod, the two most enthusiastic supporters of the Agriculture Department bureaucrat—Kyra Phillips and John Roberts—agreed that it might be time for the government to consider a crackdown on irresponsible bloggers who spread hatred.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/alana-goodman/2010/07/23/cnn-host-calls-crackdown-bloggers-wake-sherrod-incident-something-s-g 

I’m reasonably certain that Phillips and Roberts have both heard of the First Amendment. It even protects people I don’t agree with. And like everyone else, I receive an abundance of viral e-mails filled with misinformation and/or varying levels of hate. It’s sad commentary on a segment of our society, although it is sometimes entertaining to be exposed to the ignorance of people responsible for spreading Internet rumors and speculation. But what the hell? Everybody is entitled to believe what they want to believe. And I know from talking to right-wing family members and friends that my blog posts and opinions are perceived as left-wing ranting. But writing about my version of the world is an American privilege I enjoy exercising.

It is the same privilege exercised by Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and other escapees from the nation’s asylums. However, the line is crossed when malicious viral video is presented as legitimate news. The Breitbart segment aired on Fox “News” in the context of legitimacy (if that is even possible on the Republican Propaganda Network). Instead, the story was a personal attack on an obscure federal official in the Obama Administration.

I doubt that Fox will lose viewers because of the gaffe. Most people watching the network don’t really care about facts. The truth only confuses them. Nonetheless, the Sherrod story further revealed the close relationship between Fox and Breitbart—a marriage that had already exposed many times before.

Since Shirley Sharrod’s office is located in close proximity to CNN’s Atlanta headquarters, it was a chance to bring her into the studios and engage in crusading journalism by defending an injustice—especially her idiotic treatment by Department of Agriculture officials who asked for her resignation based on a Fox “News” story. It doesn’t get any more stupid than believing Fox. 

Anyway, I admired CNN for taking up a crusade for justice. At least until I realized that instead of restoring the kind of reporting missing from contemporary television, the network was simply using Sherrod as a way to criticize the competition.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

I’m a half-full glass kind of guy. And when bad things happen to good people (or even bad people, for that matter), I look for the positives. In the case of fired Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod much has been gained this week.

Foremost is exposing low-life Andrew Breitbart’s as right-wing scum. Prior to releasing an out-of-context video segment of a speech Sherrod made to an NAACP gathering in Georgia, Breitbart’s Internet site was the source of much of the racist propaganda on Fox “News.” Most notorious was heavily edited undercover video of a Breitbart operative posing as a pimp while seeking financial help from ACORN to open new whorehouse. Fox repeatedly ran the video and it flooded the Internet. Although, the black activist political organization claimed the video failed to reflect what really happened, Breitbart refused to release the raw tape. ACORN has since disbanded, in large part because of the publicity given the right-wing manufactured scandal.

The simpleton Breitbart “investigative reporter” playing the pimp role subsequently stumbled over his idiocy when he tried to entrap Louisiana U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu by tampering with telephone lines in her New Orleans office. Accompanied by two equally moronic “undercover agents” dressed as telephone repairmen, the trio was arrested and ultimately cut a deal with federal prosecutors to plead guilty to misdemeanor charges.

Brietbart has also been involved in other unsavory schemes designed to embarrass the Obama Administration, Democrats and anyone else on his enemies list. What makes him dangerous is the fact that Fox “News” will spread any rumor he passes along. Breitbart receives frequent French kisses from Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. They in turn spread the germs to fans. The good news is that the Sherrod incident might cause a few people to use mouthwash after being exposed to the Republican Propaganda Network.

Actually, there was a minor miracle on Fox. Glenn Beck came to the defense of Sherrod. It is the first time to my knowledge that he has ever told the truth about anything dealing with the Obama Administration.

Before reporting other positives from the Sherrod incident, I need to explain what happened for the benefit of readers who may have been trapped in remote parts of the world during the the past 72 hours, or failed to pass within 100 yards of a television set carrying CNN. The network went wall-to-wall on coverage, trapping Sherrod in its Atlanta studios and refusing to allow her to leave until Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack dropped to his knees, begged forgiveness and offered her a big promotion to compensate for his stupid decision seeking the Georgia official’s resignation before viewing the full video of Sherrod’s inspiring speech about her transformation from judging farmers by the color of their skin. She told the audience that a white farm couple in south Georgia helped her realize that poverty was color blind. The elderly couple were the first to come to Sherrod’s defense, telling reporters that the Agriculture Department official went far beyond the call of duty to help them save their farm. The Breitbart video only showed a few seconds of Sherrod’s speech in which she gave background of her epiphany about race.

Another possible bright spot in the debacle is the embarrassment it caused the Obama Administration in what is tantamount to an admission that officials actually watched Fox “News” and give a shit about its distortions. Maybe they accidentally switched to Fox to get away from Rick Sanchez. If that is the case, Fox could pick-up Administration viewers in August when Sanchez temporarily replaces Campbell Brown in the 8:00 p.m. slot. That is like replacing a healthy diet with junk food. Brown was one of CNN’s better anchors and reporters. On the other hand, Sanchez only acts like he knows what he is talking about. He was in top form yesterday, treating the Sherrod story like it was a state funeral. Overreaction to overreaction is the best way to describe his reporting.

Despite going overboard yesterday in its Sherrod coverage, I was happy to see CNN mount a strong defense of the woman. Objectivity was cast aside, which is sometimes appropriate in journalism—though not to the extent of Sanchez’s often uninformed reporting. Fortunately, the Sherrod issue was so clearcut that CNN avoided an outbreak of shrinking testicles—a virus that has regularly swept the network in the past when dealing with controversy. Believe me, I know. Read all about it in my book. Can’t resist the chance for a quick plug.

Back to the half-full glass. The biggest positive to emerge in recent days is Shirley Sherrod. The daughter of a farmer murdered by white men never brought to justice, she has become a hero of millions of people this week. Instead of going quietly after being publicly humiliated by her bosses and the NAACP, she defended herself with the kind of dignity that exposed Andrew Breitbart, Fox “News” and right-wing hate-mongers as people devoid of moral consciences.

If Sherrod can resist exploiting the scandal and/or being exploited, not only will her glass be half-full, it will overflow.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.