There's a big brouhaha going on right now.

Some background: remember the recent NAACP vs Tea Party spat last week. Monday, Andrew Breitbart released video (can't find the original anymore so an article will have to suffice) of a black USDA employee, Shirley Sherrod, USDA Rural Development Georgia State Director, who admitted to racist feelings against a white farmer.

It ends up all over Fox News, Drudge, the bologsphere and conservative talk radio run with it. By the end of day, Shirley is fired from her job at the request of the White House.

Later it comes out that the video was edited. She was actually telling a story about how she felt guilty for having racist inclinations and wend above and beyond her duties to help a white farmer keep his home. Following the experience she realized her duty was to help the less fortunate and to move beyond race.

I have two things to say about this.
1. Total proof of the TDS right-wing media feedback cycle. Right wing commentator, blogger, publisher says something radical > news reports that "some say" or "new information shows" > pundits now cover the controversy over the issue > cycles back into the news reports. This all happened in less than 12 hours. We went from video posted on right-wing news site to the ordered firing of an employee in less then 12 hours.

2. This knee-jerk reaction by the White House in response to what was a radical right claim is disconcerting. It shows us that the administration is deeply afraid of the Fox News right. They folded like a deck chair. This kind of defensive, near paranoid attitude reminds me of the Bush administration: reactive rather than proactive; ultimately at the mercy of their own desire to appear flawless and in control. The administration is too tightly wound and it shows. This time it was one woman's job but what comes next?

UPDATE: Here's Breitbart on CNN with some world class wargarbl. He claims that CNN didn't do enough to prove that the farmer they had on was the same farmer Shirley Sherrod helped all those years ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfPqG_kjBoY&feature=player_embedded