Shirley Sherrod may have found an unlikely ally: Glenn Beck.
Beck defended the USDA appointee, who resigned after Big Government posted a controversial video clip of a speech she gave to the NAACP earlier this year. In the clip, she described an incident when she debated how much to help a white farmer in need of assistance, though she has said that her remarks were taken out of context.
Beck said today that it’s possible she “deserves her job back.”
Beck said on his show that he is “puzzled by this,” and compared the situation to “taking a videotape of me at an AA meeting where I say, ‘And you know what, I have to tell you something. I was drunk everyday. I was completely out of control,” and stopping the tape before he said he found Jesus.
Beck continued: “There’s enough there that makes you say ‘hmm,’ but it’s the only tape that I have seen on her. The only one.” He added that the NAACP made a statement saying that they plan to talk to Sherrod and and watch the video before making a further statement. “When was the last time the NAACP didn’t give someone the benefit of the doubt right away who was African-American?”
“Now if she is relating a story from1986 to make a point about how her racial perceptions have changed, this woman deserves her job back. Again, me at AA. Something is definitely wrong here,” Beck said.
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Jillian Rayfield
Jillian Rayfield is a Reporter/Blogger for TPM, and started as a News Intern in May 2009. She graduated from Cornell University in May 2008 with a degree in Film, and worked as a Research Assistant for a market research firm in London in between.