I think she should get her job back. I think she’s owed apologies from pretty much everyone, including my good friend Andrew Breitbart. I generally think Andrew is on the side of the angels and a great champion of the cause. He says he received the video in its edited form and I believe him. But the relevant question is, Would he have done the same thing over again if he had seen the full video from the outset? I’d like to think he wouldn’t have. Because to knowingly turn this woman into a racist in order to fight fire with fire with the NAACP is unacceptable. When it seemed that Sherrod was a racist who abused her power, exposing her and the NAACP’s hypocrisy was perfectly fair game. But now that we have the benefit of knowing the facts, the equation is completely different.

In one of the recent Journolist belches we saw how creatures like Spencer Ackerman see nothing wrong with randomly charging innocent conservatives with racism in order to send a message. This is a deplorable tactic conservatives regularly and rightly deplore when used by liberals (we usually have less proof than we have in Ackerman’s confession). I see no reason to emulate this tactic and I very much doubt that was Andrew’s intent. Some emailers on the other hand seem to come close to making the case for this kind of thing. As I’ve argued countless times before, this sort of politics is almost always counter-productive and quite often grotesque. Embracing the tactics you condemn in others requires, at minimum, that you stop condemning it in others. It also has the potential to sell your soul on layaway.

Meanwhile, as a matter of politics, I think this episode demonstrates that this White House is a much more tightly wound outfit than it lets on in public. The rapid-response firing suggests a level of fear over Glenn Beck and Fox that speaks volumes.