Shirley Sherrod — the disgraced Department of Agriculture employee who was wrongly ousted when an incomplete and out of context video clip portrayed her as a racist — declined the new job offer. As well she should have.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has yet to fully retrieve the blade he plunged in Sherrod’s back last month, completely lacerating her reputation and ripping open her impeccable job record. Why would Sherrod willingly return to such a reptilian work environment where people so quickly cannibalize their own? Sherrod needed a tourniquet, because she was mauled so badly by Fox News and other arch-conservatives. And it was Vilsack who dangled her above the shark tank for her to be shredded and in order to save himself. It was a cowardly and dastardly act by Vilsack and it was egregiously reactionary.
Vilsack chucked hot sauce into Sherrod’s open humiliation wound, when his people ordered her to pull off to the side of the road to tender her resignation without a hearing or complete investigation of the evidence. Then Vilsack stuck by his faulty decision to fire Sherrod even after he heard her side of the story.
Vilsack should have offered Sherrod something more in return for nearly ruining her. At this point, U.S. Agriculture Secretary should cower over to Sherrod on bended knee with a bouquet in his hand. He should be forced to carry her groceries for a month. At this point, Mr. Secretary, you are lucky to retain your own job after this colossal blunder. People have been fired for less. Just ask former White House social secretary Desiree Rogers.
Sherrod was bludgeoned half to death and it takes more than just a few Band-Aids and pedestrian platitudes about her wonderful work ethic [oh, so she’s a great worker now?!?] to heal such ruptured relations.
“It is a new position,” she said of the Office of Advocacy and Outreach in the civil rights division “I look at what happened now. I know he has apologized and I accept that. A new process is in place and I hope that it works. … I think I can be helpful to him and the department if I just take a little break and look at how I can be more helpful in the future,” Sherrod said.
Sherrod deserves at least that much — and much, much more. She quietly executed her duties with exemplary competence for years and was trampled upon after misinformation by an Obama-hating conservative machine-gunned its way into our collective conscience. President Obama himself should offer her a plush job with ample perks as a reward for her career-long excellence. Heck, she should have the right to file a lawsuit against Vilsack for wrongful termination — after she collects her lawsuit money from Andrew Breitbart for putting that edited videotape online and discharging it into cyberspace.
And Vilsack should be told that he is getting off easy after soiling his own pants on this one. –terry shropshire
