Those Who Appease Bullies Get What They Deserve

All the tsk-tsking about unfairly blaming the Obama administration for the Shirley Sherrod debacle instead of blasting the real culprits - Andrew Breitbart and Faux News - misses the point:

By continually caving to the racists and nihilists of the frightwing, this administration is surrendering the battle before it begins.

Down with Tyranny highlights three who get it.

Right-wing bullies thrive on fear, cowardice and on political leaders like Barack Obama who don't want to make waves and would rather "split the difference." When I was just a wee lad in elementary school no one had explained the physics of muscles and fists to me properly. I was a safety crossing guard and there was this one big bully-- he towered over me-- who used to terrorize weaker, smaller students. He pushed some poor kid down at my post one morning and I walked over to him and pulled him off the guy. We got in a fist-fight... and he pulverized me. But he never bothered me again and he never made any trouble on my corner again. It's when you don't stand up to bullies, as Neville Chamberlain learned, that they feel empowered.

I hope you read Alan Grayson's post at Daily Kos yesterday. Watch the video (above) he put up in response to a right-wing asshole offering to pay someone to assault Alan. Alan's response: "I punch back." It's why the Republican's hate him and fear him more than any other Democrat. ANY. OTHER. DEMOCRAT. He should start a school for his fellow congressmen. A couple weeks ago, one called me, a decent progressive, whimpering how he's being challenged by a conservative in his primary and asking that Blue America give him some money. I suggested instead that he go sit at Alan Grayson's feet for a few weeks and learn how to be a man and a Democrat. Alan should be the head of the DCCC instead of these weak, corrupt vacillators who think winning a campaign is collecting a bunch of tainted corporate PAC contributions, hiring some Inside-the-Beltway hacks to do 30 second TV spots that no one cares about and sending setting up some pointless phone banks for incumbents who vote with the Republicans as their default positions.

One person who Grayson won't have to give lessons in self-defense to is America's new sweetheart: Shirley Sherrod. Greg Sargent hit the nail plum on the head in yesterday's Washington Post when he pointed out that her reaction is going to drive the right bananas:

Check out this nugget in an interview that Shirley Sherrod did with Joe Strupp, in which she comes right out and claims Fox News is using her as a "pawn" in a racist plot to undo the gains African Americans have made:

She said Fox showed no professionalism in continuing to bother her for an interview, but failing to correct their coverage.

"I think they should but they won't. They intended exactly what they did. "They were looking for the result they got yesterday," she said of Fox. "I am just a pawn. I was just here. They are after a bigger thing, they would love to take us back to where we were many years ago. Back to where black people were looking down, not looking white folks in the face, not being able to compete for a job out there and not be a whole person."

This is pretty incendiary stuff. Sherrod is clearly not going away, and now she appears determined to force a larger conversation about the Breitbart-Fox News axis's broader efforts to stoke white resentment towards the nation's first African American president.

Of course, if the White House's goal is to avoid racial controversies, this blast from Sherrod isn't going to make it any easier for them to take a stand and resolve this.

But let's have that conversation about what Breitbart and Fox are really up to, say I! Looking forward to Fox's coverage of this.

Obama can still have his Mr. Cool image and not get walked all over by Fox and the right wing hyenas who are never going to treat him any better than they've been treating him no matter how much he kisses their asses. They will continue to root for him to fail, continue to look to trigger his Waterloo, continue to do everything they can-- in Congress and in the media-- to undermine America for their own selfish interests. It's time to take a stand-- it's past time to take a stand.

Obama should fire Rahm Emanuel and beg Alan Grayson for advice. Or Shirley Sherrod. And he wouldn't go wrong listening to the Democratic candidate running for Congress in western Ohio's 8th district, Justin Coussoule who learned a lot about dealing with bullies as a cadet at West Point. Coussoule says the Army confirmed something he'd known his whole life. "Leaders of character choose the harder right over the easier wrong, and they do it even when no one else is watching." Coussoule's view that public service is synonymous with selfless service isn't new, but it is reassuring given the fact that so many, including Boehner, seem to have forgotten the basics.

"If Democracy is worth dying for, then it's sure as hell worth fighting for. We have to support those who take this battle seriously."