In the case of Shirley Sherrod, the USDA official
forced to resign because of a doctored tape that made her unfairly look like a racist, there are no winners regardless of the outcome:
The Obama Administration - no matter how the Obama Administration reacted, it would have been a loss. If Sherrod didn't resign, the conservative media would have made Sherrod's case another notch in "the Obama Administration is racist against white people" narrative. Because she was quickly forced to resign, now those same folks are saying that the Obama Administration "acted too quickly."
NAACP - a huge embarrassment for the organization in terms of trust. What happened to Sherrod will be the talk in black churches and barbershops for months to come.
The American media - in 1980 when former Washington Post writer Janet Cooke was discovered to have created a phony story about an eight-year-old drug addict, she was blacklisted. In 2010 when Andrew Breitbart pushes a doctored tape, he is featured on media shows from coast to coast. There is something wrong with that equation. While the Obama Administration and the NAACP should be condemned for their rush to judgment, to ignore Breitbart's and Fox News's hand in hyping this controversy is a serious error that will continue to hurt the credibility of the American media. They shouldn't be allowed to walk back from what they did.
And the biggest loser in this case:
Shirley Sherrod - Sherrod is an innocent woman who became a pawn in an ugly game to discredit the Obama Administration. She has become the symbol of what's wrong with Washington, i.e. the inability to get anything done because the pursuit of immature playground games. As her case proves, playground games may be good for children, but when adults play them, people tend to get hurt.
