Happy Wednesday everyone! Welcome to your open thread. I’m excited because I’m traveling to Las Vegas today to attend the Netroots Nation conference. Expect updates from there this week!
I totally agree with Greg Sargent’s take on the Shirley Sherrod mess. Someone in the administration needs to explain what happened so we can avoid this happening again.
But it isn’t enough for Vilsack to reinstate her. People should demand that his review include an explanation for his own decision to fire her. We need to hear his justification for the decision to ax this woman before all the facts were in, on the strength of nothing more than an Andrew Breitbart smear.
Did Vilsack make any effort to learn more about her speech before giving her the push? If not, why not? Sherrod says she told top USDA officials that the full speech would vindicate her. Did anyone at USDA give her protestations even a passing listen? Did anyone try to obtain video of the full speech? If not, why not? Why was Breitbart’s word alone allowed to drive such a high-profile decision?
People should also demand that the White House weigh in publicly on what happened here. The White House has only discussed this via anonymous leaks, and this morning, officials are conveniently leaking word that the White House prodded Vilsack to reconsider Sherrod’s firing. That’s nice, but was the White House told in advance that the firing was about to happen, and if so, why did it allow the firing to proceed?
This decision made absolutely no sense. Most public servants are given the benefit of an investigation before they’re fired. Is Vilsack more afraid of what Breitbart might say rather than what is correct or true? If so, we have a real problem.
The Republicans war on the unemployed continues. Ben Stein writes that unemployed people are just bad people.
Writing at the American Spectator yesterday, former Nixon speechwriter and TV personality Ben Stein downplayed the suffering unemployed Americans are experiencing by writing that the people who are unemployed right now are “generally people with poor work habits and poor personalities.” He claims the unemployed are Americans with “unpleasant personalities…who do not know how to do a day’s work“:
The people who have been laid off and cannot find work are generally people with poor work habits and poor personalities. I say “generally” because there are exceptions. But in general, as I survey the ranks of those who are unemployed, I see people who have overbearing and unpleasant personalities and/or who do not know how to do a day’s work. They are people who create either little utility or negative utility on the job. Again, there are powerful exceptions and I know some, but when employers are looking to lay off, they lay off the least productive or the most negative. To assure that a worker is not one of them, he should learn how to work and how to get along — not always easy.
I think Republicans should write more op-eds on how the unemployed are lazy and how much rich people need their tax cuts. I think the Republicans’ premature November victory dance has made them arrogant. They shouldn’t believe their own hype. If they win it’s because of the poor economy not Republicans’ great ideas.