Eddie Long Can Repent By Apologizing for Gay Bashing

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Embattled mega church preacher Bishop Eddie Long came as close to confessing his sexual debauchery as any debaucher could come without actually confessing. He cryptically told his singing, shouting, handclapping flock that he wasn’t a perfect man, and that he would face some painful situations. This was a good step forward for Long. He didn’t do the usual soft shoe, duck and dodge around the issue. Or worse, defiantly claim that he was being persecuted for being a pure and righteous man of God. Or even worse still, break out in a teary eyed plea to family and flock for forgiveness.
These are the stock ploys that a bevy of celeb preachers, politicians and a Pope snatch at when caught with their sexual hypocrisy exposed. Long didn’t go there. He simply spun his hypocrisy as that of a man engaged in a thoughtful and reflective soul search. Long now should take one more step in his soul search and apologize for his greatest sin. That’s his near decade long, relentless, gay bash. Long didn’t just do what many conservative fundamentalist black preachers do and quietly twist scripture and verse to make the case that God condemns gays to eternal hell and damnation. He actively led crusades against gay marriage, and by extension gays, railed against them on his websites, in fiery sermons, loudly backed George W. Bush's federal amendment banning gay marriage, and led a slanderous march to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s gravesite to denounce gay marriage. Each new accusation that Long used his youth training academy as a cover to procure kid sex, may ultimately prove him to be not just a hypocrite, but a full blown sexual predator.

Long then should issue a statement, better still do what he does best, and deliver a sermon on tolerance. That’s tolerance toward all those who have a different sexual preference. He should invite the leaders of the nation’s top gay rights organizations to take a front row seat at his church and look them square in the eye, as he preaches his sermon on tolerance. He should then make it plain to his mostly black congregation that he does not want them to mindlessly and blindly shout “Jesus Jesus” and “it’s time to praise him,” and sang hymns such as “white as snow” as they did when he made his kind of sort of admission of guilt from the pulpit. This reinforces the despicable notion that blacks are narrow, bigoted, and brain dead zombies who will give a pass to even the most blatant and outrageous criminal and sexual behavior and exploitation as long as it’s done in the name of Jesus and the offender is black.
Afterwards, Long should announce in tandem with gay organization leaders that New Birth Missionary Baptist Church will set up a new academy dedicated to the principle and practice of tolerance. He took a light step in that direction some time back when at the prodding of Soulforce, a gay Christian advocacy group, he played at having a dialogue on his attitudes toward gays. That didn’t go very far. This time it should.
Long set the standard of bigotry and bias for a new generation of conservative fundamentalist mega black churchmen on gay rights. An apology and outreach won’t undo that. It can though be a step toward his personal repentance. God, I’m sure, would approve.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Bishop Eddie Long: Victim, Hypocrite or Both in Sex Scandal?

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

There mega-church black minister Bishop Eddie Long was in January 2004 with the Rev. Bernice King, the daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in tow, leading a spirited march of thousands to the Atlanta gravesite of Dr. King. Long and the demonstrators marched to denounce gay marriage. The choice of King’s site to make the hell fire and damnation point that gay marriage was sinful, degenerate, and against every Biblical precept was painful and insulting to see. The not so subtle implication was that King might well have stood with her and them in their gay bashing protest. Given King’s relentless and uncompromising battle against discrimination during his life, this was beyond pure poppycock; it was well, insulting and painful to see.

But even though Long sullied King's name and legacy to torpedo gay rights, the Bishop seemingly was not a hypocrite when it came to denouncing gays. He was one of the biggest, best known, and virulent black evangelical attackers of gay marriage. Long had prominently touted then President George W. Bush's federal amendment banning gay marriage on his church Web site. Long’s anti-gay phobia was so virulent that then NAACP president Julian Bond publicly declared he would not attend the funeral service of Coretta Scott King at Long’s New Birth Missionary Baptist Church. Why, because as Bond flatly said "I knew her attitude toward gay and lesbian rights. And I just couldn't imagine that she'd want to be in that church with a minister who was a raving homophobe. He obviously couldn’t see himself there either.

For a brief moment, Long seemed to relent some from his sledgehammer bible quoting attacks on gays when he agreed to meet with Soulforce, a gay Christian lobby organization, at his church in 2008. Long’s epiphany went no further than the one meeting and a pithy statement from him that there were “things about homosexuality that he needs to learn”

The question then is the accusations from the lengthening list of teen and young male adults who claim that Long bought and paid for their sexual favors true? They may well be phony as a nine dollar bill, a shakedown, or a dirty put up job to smear a prominent black minister that many blacks regard as a leader and advocate. But even if that turns out to be the case, there’s another more compelling question. Did Long’s long, open and relentless crusade against homosexuals tag he and many other anti-gay prominent black church leaders as narrow, bigoted, and hypocritical in championing the very discrimination that King and the civil rights movement waged a titanic battle against?

A big warning sign that the gay rights issue would inflame, polarize, and even energize blacks within and without the black pulpit came in 1997 when the Green Bay Packers perennial all-pro defensive end Reggie White, an ordained minister, touched off a firestorm of protest from gay groups with a rambling, hour- long talk to the Wisconsin legislature in which he took a huge swipe at gay rights and gay marriage. He later barnstormed through several Mid-Western cities pushing the anti-gay gospel at pro-family rallies.

Before his untimely death in 2005, White apologized for his anti-gay remarks, but he was unrepentant in his view about homosexuality. He was a conservative black minister and homosexuality, as with Long, still violated his biblical conception of the proper roles for men and women. In defying the canons of political correctness, White became the first celebrity black evangelical to say publicly what many black religious leaders said and believed privately. Few blacks joined in the loud chorus that condemned his remarks.

The same year the conservative Virginia based Alliance for Marriage corralled a handful of top black preachers to plop their name on the Alliance’s letterhead and tout the Alliance’s anti-gay rights agenda. The year before White’s outburst, and the Alliance's rope in of black ministers like Long, a Pew Poll measured black attitudes toward gay marriage and found that blacks by an overwhelming margin opposed it. A CNN poll eight years later showed that anti-gay attitudes among blacks had not changed much since then. The substantial backing black voters gave California’s anti-gay marriage measure, Proposition 8 and anti-gay marriage initiatives in other states, was ample proof of that

Gay rights, and especially gay marriage, advocates have had a big uphill battle to convince blacks that tolerance didn’t begin and end with race alone. The Democrats and civil rights groups had no real defense against the anti-gay phobia among black Christian groups and blacks that weren’t of the faith but still loathed gay marriage.

For years Long was a leader of the anti-gay pack. When confronted with the charge of sex pandering, he loudly declares he did nothing wrong, and is willing to confront his accusers to show them to be the liars and con artists they are. Long may just be right. The fact that the charges were leveled at him, a man of the pulpit who turned gay bashing into a growth industry in the pulpit, doesn’t make him a hypocrite. But it doesn’t make him a victim either.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Rethinking Palin

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

It's time to rethink Sarah Palin. From the moment that Republican presidential candidate John McCain plopped her on his ticket, the supreme article of political faith from all pundits, much of the press, most Democrats, and the GOP establishment has been that Sarah Palin is a laughingstock, a sideshow diversion, an ignoramus on the issues, a gossip and celebrity starved media creation, and, of course, a closet race tinged crowd baiter. The Palin allure is built squarely on elements of these features. But what's now painfully obvious, is the allure has turned Palin into a political force, threat, and danger.

The millions of Palin loathers gag at the thought of this. But her string of victories by candidates she endorsed in the primaries, and a flip-flop in some polls that now show more people than not say that she should run, and a more than a few say that she should win, have radically changed the game.
The tough to swallow truth is that she has greater national political name recognition than any other Republican and that includes her former ticket head, McCain. She energizes and rallies conservatives, and polls say more Americans self-identify themselves as conservatives than liberals, let alone progressives. Palin's motherly, family-values, fundamentalist pitch fascinates even those who personally detest her message. This includes much of the Palin obsessed media. Her political ineptness, naiveté smacks of a bumbling political innocence that far from being a liability endears her to throngs. This makes her the hot ticket item she is on the media and lecture circuit. It also now has more GOP candidates and some incumbents begging her and her Tea Party pals to troop through their neck of the woods and say a word of praise on their behalf.

GOP regulars and political pundits still shrug her off as a possible GOP presidential candidate in 2012. And she's still a favored running joke of late night comics. But this has endeared her to many as a scorned mother non-politician. That serves to keep her public stock and appeal high. The Christine O'Donnell and Joe Miller GOP senate primary victories in Delaware and Alaska sent her stock through the ceiling.

Palin exploits another feeling that GOP mainstream politicians have been inept, clumsy, or gun shy about exploiting. And that's race and Obama. During the campaign McCain wisely declared that off-limits. But Palin didn't. She quickly trotted out the GOP's old reliable playbook of racially tinged code words, phrases, and digs at Obama, "paling around with terrorists," and "This is not a man who sees America as you see America and as I see America." Far from turning voter's heads in disgust and revulsion at the word play, they got rousing cheers whenever she spewed them out on the campaign stump.

That sent the signal that there were millions of voters who would never accept an Obama presidency, no matter what he said, or did, and no matter how well he said or did it. They just simply could not stomach the idea of a black man in the White House, and they would go to any lengths to get him out of there. But to make the counter assault on Obama work, it would take a media savvy and manipulative, galvanizing figurehead to rev up the crowds, and a vehicle to organize them once they were revved up. Palin and the Tea Party were the manna from above to try and accomplish that. Even while the much of the press and the pundits continued to bash her harder than any GOP candidate since Hoover Herbert during the presidential campaign, the crowds that wildly cheered her didn't slack up one bit. And neither did the endless refrain from the Palin cheerleaders that she was one of us. And since winning elections is still as much about which candidate can win the hearts not the heads of the voters, Palin was clearly the one who could tug at the voter's heart strings.

The final vote result proved it. Despite the colossal baggage McCain and the GOP carried, and colossal advantages Obama and the Democrats had, the majority of white moderate and conservative voters, and a large segment of young whites and independents still voted for McCain. In the nearly two years since Obama's election, Palin has been the GOP stalking horse to stampede the herd of moderates and conservative independents even further away from Obama.

The Palin success in grabbing headlines, firing up anti-Obama mania, and snapping the heads of the GOP establishment to attention hasn't been lost on Palin. She's adroitly moved her game plan to the next level, and has extended the Olive Branch to the GOP mainstream with saccharine public appeals for the party to make peace and target Democrats for the boot in November. Her party unit pitch is aimed at doing one thing, and that's to bring her in from the fringe cold and establish her as a worthy, even credible, presidential candidate in 2012. So far she's done everything else right, and there's no reason to think that she won't make some headway on this either. This horrific possibility is more than enough cause to rethink Palin.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Farrakhan Endorsement Makes Ground Zero Mosque Backers Squirm

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is the latest to weigh in on the great Ground Zero mosque debate. Predictably, Farrakhan gave fulsome backing to building the mosque at the controversial spot. But Farrakhan took it a step further and just as predictably gave it a racial spin. He said that there are a lot of blacks who are Muslims, and some of them were killed in the 9/11 terror attack. Farrakhan, race, and controversy; the three go hand in hand. That’s always enough to make folk squirm.
In the days building up to the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the question is how just much will Farrakhan’s public tout of the mosque, make some of the mosque’s fervent backers squirm? Probably not a lot since the battle lines on the mosque are pretty firmly drawn. You’re either for it on religious freedom, tolerance, or constitutional grounds. Or you’re against it on desecration of hallowed soil, insensitivity, or it’s a deliberate provocation grounds.
Polls show that the overwhelming majority of Americans oppose it for one or all of the reasons cited. The mosque is a religious and political minefield. It was inevitable that Farrakhan would plunge into it. He has that right.
But Farrakhan is instant controversy, and even more instant racial polarization. That was never more evident than during the 2008 presidential campaign. Days after then Democratic presidential contender Obama announced his candidacy, Farrakhan praised and virtually endorsed him in a speech at the Nation of Islam’s annual Savior's Day confab in Chicago. A horrified Team Obama promptly issued this statement: Senator Obama has been clear in his objections to Minister Farrakhan's past pronouncements and has not solicited the minister's support." That didn’t satisfy his primary foe Hillary Clinton. She publicly demanded that he forcefully reject Farrakhan's endorsement. Obama did but even then he carefully avoided mentioning Farrakhan by name. It was just too hot. Obama recognized one compelling fact about Farrakhan. He may be a controversial and much vilified figure but he is not a fringe figure within black communities. He is still cheered and admired by thousands of blacks. They are also voters too and most embraced Obama with almost messianic zeal.
Mosque supporters can now count Farrakhan among their ranks. In this mid-term political season that shapes up to be the most hard fought one in decades, the mosque issue is an issue that’s one of the most inflammatory. It pricks, inflames, and punches just about every person’s hot button. It’s almost certain that one or more shrill rightwing websites, bloggers, or radio talk show hacks that froth at building the mosque at the WTC site will throw up Farrakhan’s name as see-I-told-you proof that the mosque is a closet Jihadist conspiracy against the US. That’s enough to make some squirm.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Farrakhan Endorsement Makes Ground Zero Mosque Backers Squirm

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is the latest to weigh in on the great Ground Zero mosque debate. Predictably, Farrakhan gave fulsome backing to building the mosque at the controversial spot. But Farrakhan took it a step further and just as predictably gave it a racial spin. He said that there are a lot of blacks who are Muslims, and some of them were killed in the 9/11 terror attack. Farrakhan, race, and controversy; the three go hand in hand. That’s always enough to make folk squirm.
In the days building up to the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the question is how just much will Farrakhan’s public tout of the mosque, make some of the mosque’s fervent backers squirm? Probably not a lot since the battle lines on the mosque are pretty firmly drawn. You’re either for it on religious freedom, tolerance, or constitutional grounds. Or you’re against it on desecration of hallowed soil, insensitivity, or it’s a deliberate provocation grounds.
Polls show that the overwhelming majority of Americans oppose it for one or all of the reasons cited. The mosque is a religious and political minefield. It was inevitable that Farrakhan would plunge into it. He has that right.
But Farrakhan is instant controversy, and even more instant racial polarization. That was never more evident than during the 2008 presidential campaign. Days after then Democratic presidential contender Obama announced his candidacy, Farrakhan praised and virtually endorsed him in a speech at the Nation of Islam’s annual Savior's Day confab in Chicago. A horrified Team Obama promptly issued this statement: Senator Obama has been clear in his objections to Minister Farrakhan's past pronouncements and has not solicited the minister's support." That didn’t satisfy his primary foe Hillary Clinton. She publicly demanded that he forcefully reject Farrakhan's endorsement. Obama did but even then he carefully avoided mentioning Farrakhan by name. It was just too hot. Obama recognized one compelling fact about Farrakhan. He may be a controversial and much vilified figure but he is not a fringe figure within black communities. He is still cheered and admired by thousands of blacks. They are also voters too and most embraced Obama with almost messianic zeal.
Mosque supporters can now count Farrakhan among their ranks. In this mid-term political season that shapes up to be the most hard fought one in decades, the mosque issue is an issue that’s one of the most inflammatory. It pricks, inflames, and punches just about every person’s hot button. It’s almost certain that one or more shrill rightwing websites, bloggers, or radio talk show hacks that froth at building the mosque at the WTC site will throw up Farrakhan’s name as see-I-told-you proof that the mosque is a closet Jihadist conspiracy against the US. That’s enough to make some squirm.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

The Hutchinson Political Report: Defecting Black Vote Spells Big Trouble for Democr...

The Hutchinson Political Report: Defecting Black Vote Spells Big Trouble for Democr...: "Defecting Black Vote Spells Big Trouble for Democrats - New America Media"

Defecting Black Vote Spells Big Trouble for Democrats - New America Media

Defecting Black Vote Spells Big Trouble for Democrats - New America Media

"Obama Hates America"

Earl Ofari Hutchinson
The Obama Hates America theme is not hyperbole. It has been relentlessly played for all it’s worth from the second that then Democratic presidential candidate Obama announced in February 2007 that he would seek the White House. It almost certainly will be played hard again in the days leading up to the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.
Obama’s one little step that could feed the wacky line is not telling yet where and how he’ll commemorate the day. This in itself supposedly is enough to show that the president disrespects, minimizes, or is cavalier about the hallowed day. It’s none of those things. But it’s just another in the pile of supposed anti-American sins that Obama is guilty of. The nutty knock of Obama as America hater is driven in part by ignorance, in part by politics, and in bigger part by race. The ignorance behind the attack line is easy to understand, and predictable. His name, the birth certificate flap, his frequent statement’s touting religious respect and tolerance for Muslims, and his refusal to flaunt and wave around his very private and personal expression of his Christian faith fuel the stupidity and suspicion about who and what he really is.
The politics behind the attack line is just as comprehensible. The line was set by presidential rival John McCain and run hard with by Sarah Palin VP pick during the campaign. McCain dropped veiled hints that Obama was a far out left liberal who was soft on terrorism, the Iraq war, and the Patriot act enforcement. The implication was that once in the White House he’d give away the company store to America’s sworn enemies.
Palin skipped the hints. She practically roared that Obama pals around with terrorists, left dictators, and commies. And that an Obama win would mean a leftwing takeover of the country. McCain’s hint was shrugged off, and Palin’s hit was outright mocked, ridiculed, and laughed at by much of the media. But millions didn’t laugh. They actually believed that Obama fit easily somewhere between Osama and Castro. Polls continued to show that those that said that Obama was an alien and a closet subversive hovered in the low double digit figure. In the past month, the same polls show that the number who say that about him has doubled, and they all aren’t’ Palin clones and cheerleaders. A lot of Independents and Democrats say the same thing.
Then there’s the unstated; and that’s race. There’s always been a deep feeling among many whites that African-Americans are inherent rebels against America’s institutions and values. During the late 1960’s that feeling took off. The mass civil rights demonstrations, protests, the black power surge, and the urban uprisings turned the myth of permanent black rebellion into the myth of black radicalism. This is and always has been nonsense. Yet, when facts crash hard against ingrained beliefs, and especially beliefs fueled by racial loathing, it’s no contest which will win out.
So it won’t make much difference whether Obama picks the World Trade Center site, the Pentagon, Arlington Cemetery, or the moon, to commemorate 9/11. His name, his religious tolerance, his race, and the relentless GOP smear machine have created the perfect storm to tag Obama as the president that hates America. The tweets from Palin, rightwing bloggers, and talk show gabbers snidely implying that Obama’s is that are probably already typed out and ready to go on 9/11 and beyond.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

No Surprise so Many Think Obama’s a Muslim

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

It’s no surprise that so many Americans think that Obama is a Muslim. The Pew Research Center poll found a big increase in the number of Republicans that think that. Certainly that was no surprise. And only slight less surprising the poll found that lots of Democrats and Independents also think that he’s a Muslim. No president has ever had more pejorative labels slapped on him. He’s been branded a Bolshevik, socialist, Nazi (go figure that one), an anarchist, leftist, an alien, and of course, un-American.

But the Obama is a Muslim tag carries a special taint. No religious group in America has been more distorted, reviled, and demonized than Muslims. Simply utter the word, and this instantly conjures up for many dark images of bombings, terrorist attacks, war, chaos, destruction, and fanaticism. Muslims have stirred the nativist, xenophobia, and religious intolerance pulse in many Americans that has always lurked just beneath the surface in American life. Politicians have at times played to that impulse and it in turn translated it into a massive religious social revolt, and reaped big gains at the ballot box. The rumor and fear mongering images of Islam and Muslims escalated with the emotion throbbing September 11 terror attacks. The attack stirred tremors among Muslims that they would routinely be targeted, subject to search and surveillance, and profiled at airports.

The profiling alarm bells went off again after a soldier with a Muslim name shot up the military base at Ft. Hood back in November. The Council on American-Islamic Relations wasted no time and issued a loud and vigorous denunciation of the mass killing. The Council didn't know at that moment whether Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged shooter, was a Muslim by birth, a converted Muslim, or even a Muslim at all. The name and the horrific murder spree was enough to drive the group to quickly distance itself from the rampage. Other Muslim organizations instantly followed suit and issued their own equally strong disavowal of Hasan.

This didn't stop the pack of Fox Network commentators, conservative radio talk show hosts, writers, and some officials from again openly shouting for even tighter scrutiny of Muslim groups. Airline bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab raised the decibel level on their call for transportation officials to openly profile Muslims at airports, train stations, and even on the open highways.

But this was a mere dress rehearsal for the Muslim scare that’s dogged President Obama. His speeches in Cairo last year to a Muslim and international audience, his repeated preaching of tolerance and outreach to the Muslim world, his occasional tough line on Israeli settlement expansion, and the topper, his White House Ramadan dinner, and a his favorable statement supporting the right to build a mosque at ground zero. This for many was smoking gun proof that Obama is not a closet but an avowed Muslim. Though some GOP political strategists have urged caution about making the ground zero mosque and Obama a campaign issue, the GOP will do it anyway. Fox News, the pack of right wing talk show hosts, and bloggers have had a field day doing everything possible to fan the fire of anti-Muslim sentiment. They have even dumped on the table an outrageously distorted, misstated, and misunderstood discussion of Sharia Law, and declared that any Muslim who believes in it and practices it does not believe in the Constitution and by extension can’t be a loyal American. The implication being that since Obama is a Muslim than he must also believe in the strict tenets of Sharia Law and therefore….. The dots have never been more wrongly and badly connected.

Since his initial statements on the ground zero mosque, Obama has kept silence on the controversy. There’s absolutely no need for him to say anything more about it. The issue will be fiercely debated by politicians and much of the public in the coming weeks. The danger though is that the issue will incite more rage in the days immediately before the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attack. Expect the Obama foes, and that’s nearly any GOP candidate or incumbent who can figure out a way to sneak a line or two about the attack, the ground zero mosque controversy and a sly hint that Obama backed the right to build the mosque into their speeches, to take a dig at Obama. Even some top Democrats facing tough reelection battles have backpedalled fast from Obama’s position on the Mosque. Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid was one. Expect more Democrats to follow him in the weeks to come.
The ignorance of so many Americans about Obama’s religious beliefs if nothing else refutes the old adage that religion and politics don’t mix. They do, and Obama’s foes have done everything they can to make sure that that’s the case with him.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Congresswoman Maxine Waters Speaks Out on Ethics Charges and Much More

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

California Congresswoman Maxine Waters took a virtually unprecedented step. She challenged the House Ethics Committee to fully release the entire report on her alleged ethics violation. The charge is that Waters used her influence to get the Treasury to funnel $12 million to One United Bank that her husband once sat on the board of directors of and had stock in. The bank is a member of the National Bankers Association, the minority banking assn. Waters asked the Treasury for a meeting with the NBA in September 2008. This violated the House code of conduct rule that states: Members ''may not permit compensation to accrue to the beneficial interest of such individual from any source, the receipt of which would occur by virtue of influence improperly exerted from the position of such individual in Congress.''

The ethics committee wraps its investigations in a thick cloud of secrecy. It literally takes an act of Congress to get the committee to publicly reveal the details of the case it makes against one of its own. That's the case again with Waters. The committee completed its investigation, and published its eyes only report on Waters in August 2009.

In this exclusive interview with NAM's Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Waters’ discusses the ethics charges against her, the targeting of Congressional Black Caucus members for ethics violations, the effect on the Democratic Party, her constituents, and the relation to the fall elections.





Interview with Maxine Waters



EOH: The House’s Office of Congressional Ethics charges against you were initially made more than one year ago. Why are they just being made public now?

MW: We have asked the ethics committee the same question. Why has it taken so long to bring the charges? The OCE report was made public just as the House was going into a six week summer break. That hurt, because there’s no real opportunity to contest the charges and that’s not fair. So that’s why we have publicly demanded that the committee release the full report that contains the specific charges.



EOH Many wonder because of the long time gap before release, were there any new charges?

MW. There are none. There’s nothing new.



EOH: Do you feel that you and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus are being targeted?

MW: I have no idea whether that is the case. True, there’s much speculation about that. I can say that in my case, we challenge the committee that if you have a real case, lay it out, and let’s see what happens.



EOH: Has the House Democratic Leadership, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the OCE responded to your challenge to disclose?

MW: There’s been no response. We’ll be back in special session the second week of August to vote on a Senate passed aid bill for the states. We intend then to raise the question again about releasing the report.

MW: You’ve asked for a trial. What does that entail?

MW: It’s not really a trial. It’s more an adjudication hearing. The ethics committee members present the information they have. They call witnesses and hear testimony. Our side does the same. Then they weigh everything and make a determination to sustain or dismiss. But it’s the House members sitting in judgment.

EOH: In the report that was released, a representative from Treasury was very specific that at the time you asked for a meeting with the National Bankers Association, Treasury was getting 70 to 80 calls a day from all financial parties about the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailout and your call was simply one among the many. Why then is considered now a major offense?

MW: I believe this started with a Treasury employee who was a mentee of Karl Rove (a top GOP operative). He remembered that I had disclosed that my husband sat on the board of directors of One United Bank at one time. He took this public information to the OCE to make it look as if there was a conflict of interest. The committee looked at it and said “aha” maybe there is a conflict here. And because their investigation is so limited, they came up with the idea that I received some benefit from the meeting that I requested.

EOH: There’s nothing in the 80 page report that shows that you or your husband received any financial benefit from this meeting.

MW: That’s because there was no benefit, and I know that there’s nothing in the report that shows it. One United Bank did not get any immediate help from the Treasury. The Bank then went to the private market and got $20 million in loans to help them stabilize their lending. The bank’s investors did not lose anything. The way I see it the committee took bits from conversation and information between staff members about the economic crisis and the Treasury’s role in it and then pieced them together to try to make something out of it. And it’s not fair.

EOH: House Financial Services Committee chair Barney Frank is quoted as telling you “to stay out of it”

MW: That’s not true. When I learned that One United Bank was seeking help, I said to Frank that One United is one of your constituents (the bank is headquartered in Frank’s state Massachusetts) so you should take a look at this. He said “you’re right, they are my constituents, stay out of it, I’ll take a look at what One United is requesting.” That was said before the TARP bailout even came into existence.

EOH: The media and the committee made Frank’s words to you appear that he was concerned about a potential conflict of interest on your part.

MW: That conversation took place after the September meeting and before TARP came into existence, and it was only in relation to that.

EOH: The charges against you come on the eve of the crucial fall elections. What effect could it have on them?

MW: The Democrats don’t benefit from this this close to the election. It puts them on the defensive. Even if you argue that it seems that the ethics investigation process is working, the Democrats having to defend the process at this time doesn’t help the party. It’s hurtful because it gives the Republicans a chance to say, “See the Democrats have all those problems over there.” I don’t know if they’ll do that because they’re a lot of Republicans that have been investigated. But there’s nothing positive in this for the Democrats.

EOH: President Obama weighed in on Harlem Congressman Charles Rangel who also faces ethics charges) and said he should retire with dignity. Has he communicated with you on your ethics charge?

MW: Not at all.



EOH: Has the widespread reporting of the charges hurt or tainted you with your constituents?

MW: We’ve received many calls of support. My constituents know that I’m a strong advocate for small and minority business, and for those who don’t have access. Bank of America, Chase, Citibank, and the Wall Street financial houses, all have access to the Treasury. They can pick up the telephone on a first name basis and walk into their offices as they please. The day the meeting with the NBA occurred Treasury officials met with the Big Boys from the banks. My responsibility is to make sure that minority businesses have that same access. My constituents know that I’m always going to be under fire whether from challenging the CIA on drugs, police brutality or minority businesses and they understand that.

EOH: Will you take a deal if offered?

MW: No deals! I’m not going to the backroom. Bring it out.

No Smoking Gun in House Ethics Committee Report against Waters

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Embattled California Congresswoman Maxine Waters took a bold and virtually unprecedented step. She challenged the House Ethics Committee to fully release the entire report on her alleged ethics violation. The charge is that Waters used her influence to get the Treasury to funnel $12 million to a bank that her husband once sat on the board of directors of and had stock in. This violated the House code of conduct rule that states: Members ‘‘may not permit compensation to accrue to the beneficial interest of such individual from any source, the receipt of which would occur by virtue of influence improperly exerted from the position of such individual in Congress.’’

Waters’ challenge is unprecedented for two troubling reasons. The Ethics committee wraps its investigations in a thick cloud of secrecy. It literally takes an act of Congress to get the committee to publicly reveal the details of the case it makes against one of its own. That’s the case again with Waters. The committee completed its investigation, and published its eyes only report in August 2009.
The second reason Waters made the demand for full disclosure is more troubling. There is no smoking gun proof that she did anything wrong. This writer received a copy of the eighty page report. The report contains a summary of the allegation, a jurisdictional statement, procedural history, and a summary of investigative activity. There are eighteen exhibits of memos, affidavits, testimony and interviews with Waters and the other principals involved.

The committee interviewed Waters in June, 2009. She admitted that she called then Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson and asked for a meeting with the National Bankers Assn. The Association is the trade association for the nation’s 103 minority and women-owned banks. Waters requested that Robert Cooper, NBA President-Elect supply her with “talking points” to explain the purpose of the meeting. The meeting focused solely on the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the severe financial impact the takeover had on the minority banks. She did not say who should attend, or the meeting agenda. No member of her staff attended.

The report makes clear that the only financial interest Waters had in One United Bank was investment income deposited five years ago. She disclosed that in her financial disclosure statement. Waters was asked why she did not attend the meeting with Treasury, she stated “Why should , I don’t think members normally do that The NBA are their own best advocates, let them tell their own story, that’s how I see it.” Waters chairs the House Financial Services Subcommittee. The ethics committee acknowledged that in that capacity she talked with Paulson frequently on issues involving the bank bailout, minority investment banks, money managers, and toxic assets.

Treasury officials routinely testify before her subcommittee. The committee noted that Water’s husband had resigned his position on the board of One United five months before the meeting between Paulson and the NBA in September 2008. The subsequent letters, memos and correspondence between Waters office and the NBA essentially confirm that a meeting was requested, the NBA officials did attend, and that her office was informed of the meeting.

The committee interviewed Paulson in April, 2009. He detailed the circumstances that led to the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the financial impact and confusion it caused. Paulson said that he received 70 and 80 calls a day from banks, and financial industry groups about the takeover. Waters’ call was one of them. Paulson was adamant that Waters did not “mention a particular bank” when she requested the meeting. Paulson quickly added that “even if she had mentioned that she had a personal financial interest in One United Bank that he would still have granted the meeting. He considered the request reasonable and non-partisan.
The same month the committee interviewed Congressman Barney Frank. Frank flatly said that he had frequent dealings with the NBA, and that One United Bank “was never a major presence.” When he thought of NBA “he thought of southern banks and not One United.” In December One United got $12 million in TARP funds, but Frank, who chairs the House financial-services committee, said it had nothing to do with Waters intervention. Franks wrote a provision in the federal bailout legislation that was specifically designed to aid One United. Frank has said he inserted it because One United was the only African-American owned bank in his home state, Masschusetts. In an earlier interview, he made it clear that Waters’ interest "had zero impact on the outcome because I would have done it anyway."

The actual committee report reveals in full detail that Waters did not profit from or influence decisions the Treasury made to help One United Bank, or any other minority bank. But the damage has been done. Waters is now firmly imprinted in the media and public mind as the poster politician for congressional corruption. She’s black, high profile, a ranking Democrat, and outspoken. That instantly made her an inviting target to dump on the political hot seat. The release of the full report should, but won’t change that.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Van Jones Talks about Sherrod, President Obama and Race

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

In March, 2009 President Obama named attorney and environmental activist Van Jones, Special Advisor for Green Jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. It didn’t last. 6 months later he was out. He resigned after rightwing bloggers spurred by Fox talk show hatchet man Glenn Beck smeared him his for his activist past.
The White House took much criticism for quickly accepting Jones resignation, and not fighting back against the rightwing attack on Jones. In an exclusive interview with The Hutchinson Report, Jones talks about the parallels to his resignation and the pressure to resign on Shirley Sherrod, the power of the right wing smear machine, and President’s Obama’s caution on race.


EOH: The attack on Shirley Sherrod was very similar to the rightwing attack on you. You both were forced to resign, and your names were drug through the mud. What was your reaction to her forced resignation?

VJ: I had great sympathy for her. I know what it’s like to go from being a relatively anonymous government worker to then find yourself in the middle of a media firestorm. There was a difference though. I was an activist in the Bay Area. I was an easy target. But Mrs. Sherrod was like Rosa Parks. She was pure as the driven snow. She emerged as a force for healing.
But we’re also in a different media environment today. You don’t have old gatekeepers of truth and objectivity you once had in the media. You now have people who are deliberately distorting information, pumping viruses into the body politic and creating confusion. This is not just an attack on individuals. It’s an attack on democracy.

EOH: President Obama in his apology statement to Sherrod hinted at the power of the right wing smear machine to set an agenda of fear. But are they succeeding?

VJ: There is great power there. But the plus to that is that there is a pushback. So the next time someone deliberately distorts and doctors a tape, or disinformation. There will be those in the media that will say let’s slow down and take a closer look before we go public. In my case, the lies about me, that he’s an ex-convict, a communist, had been imprinted with the public by the right-wing. And by the time we could respond with the truth, the media had already moved on.

EOH: President Obama overreacted initially to the doctored tape of Sherrod when he supported her forced resignation. My concern is that this could happen again.

VJ: The Obama Administration is not full of dumb people. It was a learning experience for them. The bigger problem though is that Andrew Breitbart and those like him that distort and create distraction deliberately in essence will win if they prevent us from talking about jobs, energy and the environment crisis, and other crucial people’s concerns. These are the issues that really matter and for which Republicans have no answers. We also over obsess about what Obama is going to say or do on an issue or events which he often has absolutely no control over.

EOH: President Obama has been repeatedly challenged to frontally address the issue of race, even hold a much talked national racial dialogue. Should he?

VJ: We do need the dialogue. Race is an issue that will not go away. Many whites are fearful that they are becoming a minority in some places in the country. They are beginning to react. On the other hand, there are millions of whites who strongly oppose racism, but they are silent. Blacks are uneasy about continuing discrimination, and many Hispanics are disillusioned over the failure of the Obama Administration on immigration. If we are going to have a national dialogue on race we’ll have to learn to listen to all sides.

GOP’s Invitation to Breibart Shows they are Lying About Race

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele has repeatedly snapped back at the charge and the notion that the GOP is racist, harbors racist elements, and plays the race card. Steele on occasion has loudly said that the RNC must embrace diversity, and be a big tent that includes minorities. Every time he opens his mouth to say these things he’s called a liar. Those that call Steele a liar rattle off the litany of racist gaffes, slurs, and acts by GOP officials, politicians, and assorted GOP connected tea party leaders and activists to prove their point.

Now they have one more thing they can add to the litany. That’s RNC Steele’s invite to rightwing smear machine engineman, Andrew Breitbart to appear at the RNC’s three day confab in Los Angeles, August 12 to 14. It’s billed as a rev up the troops, fundraiser, and called “Election Countdown.” Brietbart’s name is not buried among the GOP assorted luminaries scheduled to participate at the event. His name not only headlines the event, he and Steele will host the first night welcoming reception. His name even appears ahead of Steele’s on the opening night reception announcement.

So why is that? Is it Breitbart’s name, fame, money, the controversy and curiosity he invariably arouses, the media attention he draws, his staunch GOP troublemaking credentials, and the fact that might be good for a few more bucks in the till that compels Steele and the RNC to make him the star of their show. It’s all of the above. And this makes Breitbart an even more disgusting choice to headline a major event, by a major party, that claims it’s poised to make major gains in the midterm elections, and chatters incessantly about even taking back the House. GOP Senators and House members and mainstream party officials have put up a hard front that even with its pile of no’s to the Obama administration’s initiatives and legislation it has still managed to maintain some degree of respectability among a wide body of conservative, and moderate GOP voters. It has even grabbed votes and support from centrist independents that question or oppose Obama and the Democrats’ health care, stimulus, and tax proposals. Plopping Breitbart at the top of a major GOP event blows the party’s façade of respectability to smithereens.

Even before Breitbart’s vile hatchet job on Shirley Sherrod, he had managed to parlay a name and turn his mini-on line empire, biggovernment.com, into the bible of muckraking and old fashioned dirty tricks cheerleading and agitation against Democrats, liberal and progressive activists and minorities. Despite full exposure of the Sherrod tape as a fraud and fabrication, Breitbart still kept the lying, doctored tape on his website. This is much more than the usual standard, garden variety GOP shouts and rants at Obama and Democrats on legitimate policy issues.
Breitbart is a direct throwback to the Nixon, dirty tricks operatives and escapades of the early 1970s who brought shame and disgrace on the White House and the GOP. The party spent the next decade trying to rid itself of the stigma of being a party that condones dirt digging, rumor mongering, and even lawlessness as long as the target smeared was a Democrat.

That’s a history that Steele and the RNC will embrace and revel in if Breitbart headlines their show. Steele can prove that’s not the case by rescinding the invitation. Will he?

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

NAACP Still Hasn’t Atoned for Sherrod Blunder

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

NAACP president Ben Jealous caught holy hell from black bloggers for his astoundingly embarrassing rush to judgment applauding the curb toss of Shirley Sherrod. Jealous, of course, quickly reversed gear and admitted that he and the organization had been snookered by the rightwing attack hack Andrew Breitbart and Fox News.

But that begs the larger question, really two questions. Why was the NAACP snookered? And even after it realized it was conned, has it done enough to atone for its colossal blunder? The answers to both questions aren’t pretty. The group clearly had the tea party on its mind when it made the quick call on Sherrod. It did not want to be yelled at by tea party activists and the rightwing smear machine as hypocrites, for double dealing the race card, and for being soft on alleged black racism.

The NAACP’s knee jerk overreaction and appeasement had everything to do with timing, as it turned out bad timing. It came on the heels of the blowback that the NAACP got for its convention resolution a week earlier blasting racist elements in the tea party. Breitbart made no bones about why he trotted out the lying tape when he did. He said that he wanted to hit back at the NAACP. The NAACP could have easily ignored it, or taken a few moments to check it out, and found it to be the fraud that the world now knows it be. It didn’t and for that it took the deserved heat. The NAACP, though, has done too much, and is till to valued an organization to be endlessly beat up on for its act. Just don’t let it happen again. But the second question is still crucial and that’s has it really made up for its flub to the person hurt the most by its rash action, and that’s Sherrod.

The answer is no. Start with the retraction. The statement it issued was weak, tepid and non-committal. It did not call for an apology. It did not issue a ringing call to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to immediately and fully reinstate her to her position. It did not criticize Vilsack for making his bonehead decision to fire her. It did not promise to do an internal review and soul search within the organization to find out why it rushed to hail Sherrod’s firing and to insure that hasty decisions won’t be made again. It did not pound the tea party and the right wing attack machine. It covered itself by again repeating the patently unnecessary mea culpa that the NAACP has zero tolerance for discrimination. This is exactly the reason the organization gave for praising the swift kick to the curb of Sherrod. Unlike Vilsack and President Obama, it did not formally apologize to Sherrod for its act. It referred to the Sherrod debacle as the worn cliché teachable moment, but gave no hint that it learned the lesson, and that is to hit back and hit back hard against the right, and not just with a paper resolution. Finally, the NAACP has not even demanded that Breitbart remove the offending video (it’s still on his site) calling Sherrod a racist. The NAACP, Instead, has clamped a wall of silence on the sorry episode preferring to simply move on.

Unfortuately, Sherrod can’t. The NAACP hasn’t done much to see that she can.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

The Hutchinson Political Report: Why the White House really Rushed to Judgment on S...

The Hutchinson Political Report: Why the White House really Rushed to Judgment on S...: "Earl Ofari Hutchinson Capitol Hill reporters relentless peppered White House press secretary Robert Gibbs with questions of why the White..."

The Hutchinson Political Report: Why the White House really Rushed to Judgment on S...

The Hutchinson Political Report: Why the White House really Rushed to Judgment on S...: "Earl Ofari Hutchinson Capitol Hill reporters relentless peppered White House press secretary Robert Gibbs with questions of why the White..."

Why the White House really Rushed to Judgment on Sherrod

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Capitol Hill reporters relentless peppered White House press secretary Robert Gibbs with questions of why the White House rushed to judgment and demanded the resignation of Shirley Sherrod. A clearly flustered Gibbs could only say and repeat that the White House made its horrible decisions on faulty information. Gibbs promised a review to get to the bottom of why and how it happened. The surface reason the White House dumped Sherrod was made on faulty information, a doctored video, and simple ignorance of the true facts. It wouldn’t have taken much of an investigation to find the truth. That wasn’t done. Former Civil Rights Commission Chairperson Mary Frances Berry and others claim that Obama is scared stiff of being ripped by Fox News, Limbaugh, Beck and the conservative smear machine. That’s just as spurious. If Obama sneezes, they’d attack him for polluting the Ozone, so there’s no real fear of them. The decision to can Sherrod had everything to do with politics, and the tight cornered racial parameter of his presidency.

This was set the very first day of his presidential campaign. In his candidate declaration speech in Springfield, Illinois in February 2007, he made only the barest mention of race. The focus was on change, change for everyone. He had little choice. The institution of the presidency, and what it takes to get it, demands that racial typecasting be scrapped. Obama would have had no hope of winning the Democratic presidential nomination, let alone the presidency, if there had been any hint that he embraced the race-tinged politics of Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. His campaign would have been marginalized and compartmentalized as merely the politics of racial symbolism. The month after he got in the White House he mildly chided Attorney General Eric Holder for calling Americans cowards for not candidly talking about race.

The term for that is racial overcompensation. He must react, hard and swift, to any appearance of anyone connected with his administration that says or does anything that can be construed as racial favoritism. The doctored Sherrod speech was a near textbook fit of the requirement to punish any real, imagined, or put up racial transgression with firing, reprimand, and a quick distancing from the offending party.
Obama got a bitter taste of the misery that race can cause a president him when in an unscripted moment he spoke his mind and blasted a Cambridge cop for cuffing and manhandling Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates. The loud squeals that he was a bigot, racist and anti police for siding with Gates bounced off the Oval Office walls. A chagrined Obama back pedaled fast and asked all for forgiveness. There would no White House repeat of the Gates fiasco.
Obama has clung tightly to the centrist blueprint Bill Clinton laid out for a Democratic presidential candidate to win elections, and to govern after he won. The blueprint requires that the Democratic presidential candidate tout a strong defense, the war against terrorism, a vague plan for winding down the Iraq War, tepid proposals to control greenhouse emissions, mild tax reform for the middle class, a cautious plan for affordable health care, pro business solutions to joblessness, and make only the most genteel reproach of Wall Street.

The Clinton blueprint also requires a Democratic president to formulate a moderate agenda on civil rights, poverty, failing inner city public schools, the HIV-AIDS crisis, and the racially skewed criminal justice system in written policy statements. And then say little about them or low key their approach to them in the White House. Obama’s silence, extreme low key approach to these policy issues, occasional reminder that he’s the American president, not black president irked the Congressional Black Caucus and at times other civil rights groups.

Obama well knows that the GOP lost an election, but it still packs a punch. It and its tea party shock troops can disrupt, obstruct, and create chaos for his administration, his political agenda, and him personally. And it does it not only because that's the warfare that Republicans wage against Democrats anyway, but because the GOP has masterfully reignited its populist base against Obama. The base is rock solid conservative, lower income white male loyalists, with a heavy mix of hard line Christian fundamentalists. Despite the GOP's and tea party activists wail that racism has nothing to do with the white fury at Obama, the bitter truth is that many white voters do not and will not accept a black president.

If Obama talked candidly about race and tried to spark a dialogue on race as some clamor for him to do it would turn his administration into a referendum on race. This would turn the GOP and tea party counterinsurgency into a red hot fire.
Obama's rush to judgment on Sherrod had nothing to do with fear and only tangentially with a terrible misread of the information about her purported racial statement. It had everything to do with the price of White House governance. The price is a politically constricted, race neutral presidency.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

The Hutchinson Political Report: President Obama Do the Right Thing, Order the Rein...

The Hutchinson Political Report: President Obama Do the Right Thing, Order the Rein...: "Earl Ofari Hutchinson Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is dithering, waffling, and foot-dragging on what should be a no-brainer. And tha..."

President Obama Do the Right Thing, Order the Reinstatement of Shirley Sherrod

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is dithering, waffling, and foot-dragging on what should be a no-brainer. And that’s the immediate reinstatement of Shirley Sherrod to her post as Agriculture Department’s director of rural development in Georgia. He wronged Sherrod, a dedicated public servant, by grossly overreacting to the phony, doctored, and politically self-serving rightwing connived hit tape of a speech that Sherrod gave to a local NAACP banquet back in March that purported to show her admitting to trashing a white farmer and then refusing to help him. Despite irrefutable proof that this was a lie, a blatant effort to hit back at the NAACP and civil rights leaders for putting the heat on tea party racism, and a grotesque sully of the name and reputation of a hard-working, efficient, and loyal government program administrator, the best Vilsack could say is that he’ll conduct a review to ensure that services are provided in a fair and equitable manner.

This is the worst kind of cowardice and bureaucratic cover your backside gibberish, and Vilsack knows it. If he had conducted the review in a fair and equitable manner before panicking and trying to appease the rightwing attack machine, Sherrod would still be on the job, and the issue would have quickly blown over.
In fact, even if Sherrod did what she was alleged to have done, there’s still a little thing called due process which requires an investigation, diligent fact-finding, and corroboration, a careful weighing of the factual evidence, and then giving the accused a chance to present their case before making a decision about their fate. None of that happened. Sherrod was summarily kicked to the curb, her name drug through the media and public mud, and a sterling reputation as an official who did her job, and won consistent high praise from the legions of farmers of all races that she has aided during her years with the agency tainted.

Now that we know Vilsack doesn’t have the intestinal fortitude too quickly and publicly person up and right a colossal wrong, President Obama should. He should order Vilsack to do the right thing and apologize to Sherrod and immediately reinstate her. This would do two things. It would remove the taint that the Obama administration nervously listened to the din from the conservative echo chamber about bogus black racism and made Sherrod the sacrificial lamb. Sherrod contended that she got calls from the White House demanding her resignation. The second thing it would send the message that the White House will not be bullied, intimidated, badgered, and ultimately hit the panic and appeasement button every time the bogus shout is made that the administration is tilting toward minorities.
The Sherrod debacle was more than just a put up job by the right. It was a textbook lesson of how organized, agenda driven, rightwing ideologues, will stop at absolutely nothing to shame, embarrass, and vilify the Obama administration using the one tried and true tactic it knows will inflame, and that’s race baiting. They’ve honed that ploy to a fine art over the past four decades, and the Sherrod flap shows it still works magnificently.

Sherrod had the double misfortune. Not only was she targeted by conservatives for ouster. She was used by them as a pawn to hit back at the NAACP and civil rights organizations that have rightly put much heat to the GOP and tea party activists for their very real racism and perpetual race card play.

President Obama can undo the damage that they’ve done, and the cowardice of Vilsack in the face of their assault on Sherrod. He can order her reinstatement, with full apology for the wrong and hurt she’s suffered.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Tom Vilsack Should Apologize to and Immediately Reinstate Shirley Sherrod

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack can make history of sort by doing what politicians and government officials routinely duck, dodge, or flatly refuse to do. He can admit that he was wrong, no conned, is the better word, and apologize and immediately reinstate Shirley Sherrod to her post as Agriculture Department’s director of rural development in Georgia.

In summarily accepting her resignation, (Sherrod says she was pressured to resign),Vilsack did the absolutely indefensible and unpardonable regarding a dedicated public servant, and that’s exactly what Sherrod is and has been for nearly three decades. He bought the phony, doctored, and politically self-serving hit tape of a speech that Sherrod gave to a local NAACP banquet back in March that purported to show her admitting to trashing a white farmer and then refusing to help him. The facts are now known. Sherrod was not employed at the Agriculture Department when the purported racial transgression happened. She went above and beyond the call of duty to help the farmer save his farm, and he corroborated that. She used the anecdote as a teachable moment to show that she had overcome her personal prejudices, and as an object lesson for others to do the same. Best or worst of all, the hit tape was trotted around by a well-known rightwing baiter, and blown up by on Fox News, and gleefully chatted up on the usual suspect rightwing attack blogs, websites, and the pack of talking head shock jocks.

This alone should have made anyone, let alone a top government official suspicious. And even if Sherrod did what she was alleged to have done, there’s still a little thing called due process which requires an investigation, diligent fact-finding, and corroboration, a careful weighing of the factual evidence, and then giving the accused a chance to present their case before making a decision about their fate. None of that happened. Sherrod was summarily kicked to the curb, her name drug through the media and public mud, and a sterling reputation as an official who did her job, and won consistent high praise from the legions of farmers of all races that she has aided during her years with the agency tainted.

The Sherrod debacle should be more than a teachable moment for a government official and a wronged employee. It is yet another object lesson of how organized, agenda driven, rightwing ideologues can bully, badger, intimidate and ultimately frighten government officials into violating all precepts of fairness, due process, and just good common sense, and rush to racial judgment about a black official.

Sherrod had a double misfortune. Not only was she targeted by conservatives for ouster. She was used by them as a pawn to hit back at the NAACP and civil rights organizations that have rightly put much heat to the GOP and tea party activists for their very real racism and perpetual race card play.

An apology and the immediate reinstatement of Sherrod won’t totally undo the damage that’s been done, but it will show that a public official can do the right thing by a wronged public servant. That in itself will mean something, certainly it will mean something to Shirley Sherrod.