Shirley Sherrod should get her job back (though I wonder whether she even wants it at this point), and Tom Vilsack should publicly apologize to this woman. It's scandalous that anyone in this administration would push someone to resign based on a Fox News/Andrew Breitbart report without conducting a full investigation to ascertain the real facts. The NAACP should also be ashamed [for condemning Sherrod before it bothered to get her story]. As for Breitbart and Fox, we already know they have no shame.UPDATES: Vilsack doubles down on stupid. Breitbart admits he hasn't even seen the whole video. What a sorry, sordid episode.UPDATE II: Here's a link to the entire video. The relevant part begins at 16:00 or so. Watch it for yourself. After the part that appears in the edited video, she talks about how she ultimately managed to help the farmer save his farm. She goes on to say: "Working with him made me see that it's really about those who have versus those who don't. They could be black, they could be white, they could be Hispanic. And it made me realize then that I needed to work to help poor people, those who don't have access the way others have." Clearly, the NAACP and Vilsack got punk'd by Breitbart and Fox. At least the NAACP has the decency to admit it.

Eduardo M. Peñalver is the Allan R. Tessler Dean of the Cornell Law School. The views expressed in the piece are his own, and should not be attributed to Cornell University or Cornell Law School.

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