one that i helped, and in telling that story, how i changed while working with him, i used that to help others to see it s not about race, because they had done something to him that they had not done to some black farmers. shirley sherrod fired by the obama administration for excerpted of a tape that made the cable news round over the last couple of days. we will be talking about that this morning. i m willie geist and mike partner barnicle is here with me in new york. in washington, d.c., jonathan capehart and pat buchanan and norah o donnell. and from the gulf coast is mr. joe scarborough. been waiting all morning to get your take what has gone on the last 24 hours with the usda story. first of all, shame on all of the news organizations that ran that clip in a loop without having the entire story, and
asked if he had any regrets. we love lou. i m not going to be disappointed about anything. i did the best i could. and i m going to continue to do the best i could i can. what advice would you give i don t have any advice for anybody. challenge? absolutely no advice whatsoever. he s a real sent mental guy, mike, isn t he it? the sadness of this is lou had that press conference in chicago where blago will not testify at his trial. put the two together, lou could have been a character witness in the blado trial. his lawyer should be disbarred. lou will be missed for being a great manager but also it s one of the great showman on the field.
ben jealous said after reviewing the full tape of miss sherrod s remarks, he said they had had been snookered of harassing white farmers because of racial buy. the family who was the subject of the story said she said stay in her job. this is roger spooner yesterday praising sherrod. i guess she could say she went out of her way to help us and i never forgot her either. she was i appreciated everything she done for us and we got our farm back. so that s the farmer in question there, norah. mike barnicle, let s work through some of this stuff here. this is a story about the media. it s a story about our reaction to race. what did you take away from yesterday? it s really kind of a pathetic indictment of several institutions in this country. politics, the quick overreaction by tom vilsack and the
an old white man save his farm and this man and this woman talked on the phone yesterday morning, because they are friends, because she helped him save his farm. and that is a wonderful story and that is the american story. that is the story of good people in this country, not those who, for some malicious reason, want to put out a story that there is a war with black and white people in this country. absolutely right, norah. that s great. pat, we can t completely excuse ourselves. it s not just fox news. as mike pointed out, everybody in the world ran the clip yesterday. we got the clip, we were here yesterday morning, and it was you know, it wasn t terribly audible but you got the words and what was said and what you got was here is a woman who is the first half of her story which was an honest first half saying, look. here comes this white farmer in here and i m a young black woman and my first reaction was, you know, i don t really need to help this guy and i don t particul
by blaming the tea party, attacking the tea party for racism. but i agree, basically, with mike on this. this is an incredible rush to judgment based on a partial tape of a woman s speech several months ago. not only a rush to judgment but a rush to have her fired before, apparently, anyone sat down and talked to this woman or asked her about that or reviewed the whole tape themselves and it was done clearly out of fear, frankly, of the conservative media and fox news, their power and the fear, i guess, on the part of the administration that they don t want another fight on this racial issue, racial front. i noticed vice president biden said sunday he didn t agree that the tea party was racist at all, he did not believe that. but there s extraordinary, a, sensitive over the race issue and, secondly, immediate rush. people dividing immediately along racial lines and, third, what mike talked about the rush of judgment to fire someone and