The suit might succeed, but I don't think the facts are on her side. The video was not diabolically edited. It wasn't stitched together from tiny fragments of the speech in order to make it look as if she was saying something utterly unconnected to what she was saying. As a number of people have pointed out, the excerpt even included some of the moralizing at the end that was meant to make her story more palatable. I did not see it until I knew about the controversy, but I think an intelligent person watching it would have taken it as a confessional moment. It was an excerpt.
Here is what I take to be Breitbart's version:
This little episode from Sherrod's speech is what it is. I grew up in the Deep South. I'm not old enough to exactly remember Jim Crow, but I can remember a very brief bit of time before desegregation and a long time afterward when there was still a certain smell in the air. Feelings of superiority, disdain, hostility usually evoke reciprocal feelings. It's just human nature, so I can cut Sherrod some slack--I don't think it is reasonable to expect her to be the world's most post-racial person. Breitbart seems to be guilty of nothing more than the crime of disagreeing with me.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad
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