When I read this, it was the best commentary I’d seen on the Shirley Sherrod episode. And the reason I’ve been a huge fan of Josh Marshall since discovering political blogs several years ago.
Essentially, Marshall argues that this is “an open and shut case of … outright journalistic fraud,” yet the mainstream press has been mostly deferential to the villains in this episode, while clamoring to criticize the folks who were taken in by the fraud.
It’s also an interesting counterpoint to the “fantastic outpouring of conservative resentment following the Shirley Sherrod case,” referenced this morning by Kevin Drum (whose blog I discovered at the same time as Marshall’s TPM).
Rachel Maddow, providing historical context, advances the argument. She takes on Fox News, which Marshall refers to as “the primary vector of this story,” and presents a more deliberate big-picture view of the episode. Her analysis reveals the central role of racial resentment in a series of four big stories – “They weren’t even news, really. They were Fox News agenda items.” – pushed by the network. All have this in common: they employ a manufactured narrative tied to an explicit political strategy.
It’s political strategy to stoke fear and racial resentment among white voters. Like Kevin Philips said in 1970, “That’s where the votes are.” This is a political strategy advanced not by a news organization, but political activists who use a cable channel as a political outlet. And they are pros at this.
For an earlier episode where Andrew Breitbart – media maestro who lives here in Los Angeles – thoroughly bamboozled the mainstream media see “Andrew Breitbart Muses about Racism … and ACORN Videotapes.”
(Photograph of Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack from Wikimedia Commons.)
[Editor’s note: Revised for clarity.]
