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"Without a doubt, Ms. Sherrod is owed an apology," said White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs.

The NYT reports:

The apology capped what had been a humiliating and fast-paced turn of events for the White House, the national media and the N.A.A.C.P., all of whom, Mr. Gibbs said, overreacted to a video that appeared to show Ms. Sherrod saying that she had discriminated against a white farmer. The remarks were taken out of context from a longer speech in which she said she learned to overcome her own biases.

And yet... she did discriminate against the white farmer. (Later, she helped him. To paraphrase John Kerry: I discriminated against him, before I didn't discriminate against him.)

Later, [Agriculture Secretary Tom] Vilsack held his own news briefing to say that he had called Ms. Sherrod to apologize and had offered her a new position with the agency.

How embarrassing!

The full video... shows that in her speech, Ms. Sherrod goes on to say that she had learned from working with the farmer that all people must overcome their prejudices. 

Make a note for later use: When someone discriminates based on race, if they subsequently assert that it's important not to do that, it's wrong to hold her or him accountable.

Mr. Vilsack cited his department?s ?zero-tolerance? policy on discrimination in explaining her ouster.

Ms. Sherrod took to the airwaves on Tuesday, especially CNN, where she said that the N.A.A.C.P. was ?the reason why this happened.?

?They got into a fight with the Tea Party, and all of this came out as a result of that,? she said.

Ha. Everybody got whipsawed by race. Wanna all just fold our cards in the long-running race game? Ah, no... I didn't think so. You still think you can win, don't you? And the play is so exciting....

Full post as published by Althouse on July 21, 2010 (boomark / email).