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Luke Russert explains to MSNBC's Thomas Roberts what his marching orders are from their network. He will hound the Democrats and Anthony Weiner at every opportunity until Weiner finally resigns. Of course no word yet on when he's planning on doing the same thing to David Vitter or Tom Coburn.

The Obama administration clearly deserves most of the blame for misinterpreting a video clip to mean that a black USDA worker withheld help from a white farmer, according to Comedy Central's Jon Stewart.

While Andrew Breitbart is responsible for posting the edited video of Shirley Sherrod on his BigGovernment.com website, the Obama administration did not take the time to obtain the full speech before calling for her resignation.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack essentially forced Sherrod to resign. Stewart joked that she had been "Vilsacked." The Agriculture Secretary apologized but at least one statement reflected a lack of contrition.

"It should have been done in a much more personal way. It should have been done with far more thought and it should have been done in far less haste," said Vilsack.

"I shouldn't have been done," Stewart said to cheers from his studio audience. "We're not angry about how you fired her. We're angry that you fired her."

"I'm sorry I hit your dog with my car. I should have smothered him with a pillow," Stewart joked.

The NAACP was also forced to backtrack after initially condemning Sherrod. "We were snookered by Fox News and Tea Party activist Andrew Breitbart into believing Sherrod harmed white farmers because of racial bias," the NAACP said in a statement.

"First of all, Fox News is too busy to busy with their Black Panther hard-on to bother with this and the guy who leaked this tape may be the most honest person in this entire story," said Stewart.

Only five months ago, Breitbart said, "I want it to be in the history books saying I took down the institutional left."

"He didn't say I want to be in the history books as a paragon of honesty," Stewart noted. "He didn't say I would like to be in the museum of broadcasting and be known by children around the world as Arnold B. Truthington of Accuracy Lane. No, he said out loud, 'I want to bring down the institutional left.' So, if you are on the institutional left and you receive a package from him, watch the whole f**king tape!"

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Andrew Breitbart brushed off an opportunity to apologize to USDA official Wednesday after he posted a selectively edited clip that appeared to show her admitting to using racial preferences.

A video posted on Breitbart's Big Government alleged that Shirley Sherrod withheld help to a white family based on the color of their skin. Based on that video, the NAACP condemned Sherrod and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack called for her resignation.

After obtaining and reviewing the unedited video, the NAACP apologized to Sherrod. Vilsack has said that he will reconsider her resignation.

Breitbart debated the handling of the video with Media Matters's Eric Boehlert on ABC Wednesday. Boehlert called on Breitbart to publicly apologize.

"Andrew had no idea what the context of the comments were but that didn't stop him from launching the smear campaign," said Boehlert. "That's what Andrew and Fox media does. It's contemptible. If he had decency, he would apologize to Shirley Sherrod and would stop with the race-beating that we've seen all summer."

For his part, Breitbart said that the posting of the video wasn't about Sherrod. Breitbart claims he posted the video to highlight the NAACP cheering for racist comments.

"What this video clearly shows is a standard that the Tea Party has not been held to," said Breitbart. "The NAACP, it shows people in the audience there, applauding her when she discriminates against a white farmer. That was the point that I was trying to make."

"What the NAACP is arguing about the Tea Party is that there are people in... there are people in the crowds of Tea Parties and they're rebuking the Tea Party on that behalf. And I'm telling you, that this is a standard. If you want to talk about people clapping racist behavior, that's exactly what you see in the video," Breitbart continued.

"I think he knows Mark Williams," Boehlert countered. "Mark Williams is a national spokesperson for the Tea Party, who was expelled for making racist comments. The NAACP called out the Tea Party for racist elements. There are clearly racist elements. You look at the Tea Party media. Glenn Beck is saying Barack Obama is orchestrating a race war. Rush Limbaugh is saying Obama is keeping unemployment artificially high to exact revenge on white America. There are clearly racist elements. This race-baiting is out of control and Andrew's smear on Shirley Sherrod is latest example," said Boehlert.

"This was never about Shirley Sherrod," Breitbart interrupted.

"So apologize to her," said Boehlert. "Post a correction. Apologize to her."

But Breitbart ignored Boehlert and stuck to his talking points. "This was not about Shirley Sherrod. This was about the smears that have gone against the Tea Party," he said.

Boehlert isn't the only one who has called on Breitbart to apologize. Conservative blogger Jonah Goldberg also thinks Breitbart should say he's sorry.

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.

One SFGate.com blogger thinks that Breitbart may even be in legal trouble. "Andrew Breitbart may be a target for the U.S. Department of Justice' Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section ("CCIPS") which is in the Criminal Division," wrote Zennie62.

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Rachel Maddow hit the nail on the head in this segment with her commentary on the forced resignation of Shirley Sherrod after Andrew Brieibart did his hit piece on her and the NAACP with another highly edited video tape. I don't know who made the decision to fire Sherrod, but they need to be listening to what Rachel had to say here.

Maddow: Though we begin tonight with something we knew was coming, something we knew was inevitable after right wing activists and Fox News destroyed the community organizing group ACORN last year with supposedly incriminating video tapes that really weren't all that incriminating at all; that weren't really incriminating at all.

(BEGIN VIDEO)

Maddow: This is not meant to excuse what ACORN has done wrong in the past but the huge tide of negative publicity that followed these video tapes and the coverage they got on Fox, wall to wall for months was bull pucky. It was a dishonest political stunt that bears no resemblance to journalism and no resemblance to the actual facts of what happened in those offices. But it worked.

The organization has been shut down. Means be damned, it worked. Who do you think is next on that list?

(END VIDEO)

Maddow: Today we got an answer to that question which I hoped at the time was just a rhetorical one. The same attack that helped take down ACORN last fall was supposedly incriminating video tapes has now claimed a new victim.

The White House is denying that they had anything to do with the forced resignation of Shirley Sherrod, but I don’t buy it. As Rachel points out here, once they got their first scalp, it just emboldened them to go after more people. They’d better wise up to that fact and they need to be hiring this woman back with an apology. Rachel ended her segment with this.

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In his Special Comment Keith Olbermann argues that President Obama should not accept Gen. Stanley McChrystal's resignation. Steve Hynd at Newshoggers has this take.

McChrystal: Once A Petulant Jerk... (Updated):

And so the big question is: will McChrystal be fired for this? There's certainly enough reason to do so, but I don't think so, reading between the lines of SecDef Gates' statement (emphasis mine):

"I read with concern the profile piece on Gen. Stanley McChrystal in the upcoming edition of ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine. I believe that Gen. McChrystal made a significant mistake and exercised poor judgment in this case. We are fighting a war against al Qaeda and its extremist allies, who directly threaten the United States, Afghanistan, and our friends and allies around the world. Going forward, we must pursue this mission with a unity of purpose. Our troops and coalition partners are making extraordinary sacrifices on behalf of our security, and our singular focus must be on supporting them and succeeding in Afghanistan without such distractions. Gen. McChrystal has apologized to me and is similarly reaching out to others named in this article to apologize to them as well. I have recalled Gen. McChrystal to Washington to discuss this in person."

In my experience, that's the kind of statement managers issue when they're giving a petulant jerk a final, written, warning. It's not the kind they make when they're looking to fire someone. It's full of language suggesting the miscreant realises his mistake, is sorry, and won't let it happen again. What it doesn't contain is anything suggesting the miscreant has crossed a line. So, I expect that McChrystal will get some kind of reprimand on his record, but won't get canned. Bringing political strategy into it, as it must, that's probably how the White House is thinking too. If McChrystal gets fired for insubordination, even despite his previous record of speaking - and leaking - out, then the G.O.P. and Democrat hawks will always say that the mission in Afghanistan suffered because of it and will make political hay from that conjecture. From the White House's point of view, better to wait another six months, perhaps, and fire McChrystal for actually failing.

I agree this is a lose/lose for the President no matter how he handles it. I don't agree with Keith that we're going to see a "humbled" Gen. McChrystal that will help him redefine the mission in Afghanistan. We need to redefine the mission there, but I don't see how McChrystal is the man to do that and tragically Obama does not appear to have any interest in getting us out of there either.

Personally I think he should accept his resignation, but given the political climate as Keith and Steve pointed out, I would suspect they're right and he keeps him, at least for a while.

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John Amato:

The Republicans have no shame.

That's a line that cannot be used enough. They politicize everything they can and their actions since Saturday have been almost been traitorous. Instead of being thankful that the bomber failed and then be of service, they are looking for another scalp to take home for the New Year. Cheney should be locked up along with his buddy Scooter Libby for his actions in the White House and now we have Burton chiming in as well. FOX News and conservatives couldn't defend Bush and his merry band of useless idiots enough, but the Democratic party didn't go on TV every day demanding someone be fired.

Why wasn't Condi fired after actually having information in the form of a PDB in her hand about the 9/11 attacks in August before they hit? Instead she was promoted and then the creepy CPAC wingnuts wanted her to run for president. The odious Dick Morris even wrote a book on a Condi-Hillary match up.

The Obama administration should ignore all this garbage.

December 29, 2009 CNN

REP. DAN BURTON (R), INDIANA: Well, first of all, once again, I hear people in the administration and the media trying to make the CIA the scapegoat. This report was made from Nigeria sometime ago and I can't believe since we now have a director of intelligence, that the CIA didn't give that to the director of intelligence. And if that information was disseminated to him, it was his responsibility to make sure that all of the intelligence agencies had that information. And this guy was on the watch list.

And that's one of the reasons why I called for Janet Napolitano's resignation, because as the head of homeland security she should have made sure that anybody that was on that watch list was disseminated around the world so they were watching for them and making sure they were cleared and checked very thoroughly before they got on an airplane. And they did not do that. And I think that's one of the reasons why she should be replaced. I don't think she has the experience to do the job.

CROWLEY: But as I understand it, there are about 500,000 people on the watch list. Is it realistic to think that we would know where they all are at any given time? BURTON: No, it's not realistic to know where all of them are at any one given time. But if you disseminated that information, around the world to the various intelligence agencies, they, through the computers that we have, they can alphabetically go through and check whether someone is getting on the plane. This is not rocket science. And to say, well, there's a half a million of them, we can't check them all is just kicking the ball down the road. We've got to be able to check these people and keep them off of American planes or any planes so that they don't kill hundreds and thousands of people.

CROWLEY: Just to make clear he was not on the no fly list, in fact, and probably even if his name had turned up --

BURTON: That makes no difference to me. The CIA talked to his father. His father went there and told them that he was a risk. They sent that information to Langley. I believe that information did go to the director of intelligence. And that information, because we put that director of intelligence in place, was supposed to disseminate that information all over the place to every intelligence agency.

We did that right after 9/11 because the CIA and the FBI weren't talking to each other and so that's why the director of intelligence was created. This information was sent to CIA and I do not believe Leon Panetta or the CIA would have kept that from the director of intelligence. And if they got it to him I'm confident he would disseminate it to the homeland security and everybody else. And that man being on the watch list should have been checked very thoroughly before he got on there. Not to mention that he didn't have luggage. He bought a one way ticket. And he paid cash. And he came from Nigeria. And he came through -- I mean, come on. This guy should have been checked. He should never have been on that plane.

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The resignation of Van Jones was a "loss for the country," according to Gov. Howard Dean. "I think he was brought down," Dean told Fox News' Chris Wallace.

John Amato:

Howard Dean said he spoke to Van Jones and said...

Well, he was told by the people waving clip boards around that he was signing something else and I think that's too bad.

Digby writes:

I would hope that these leftist extremists like Color of Change will think twice before they go after an upstanding company like FOX News because the lesson here is that somebody is going to pay a big price for doing it. In fact, it probably would pay to keep a close eye on the FOX gasbags from now on to get an idea of which groups or individuals have offended the network and get rid of them before anyone has a chance to make a public stink. It would save everyone a lot of time and trouble.

We have members in the Republican party like the Michelle Bachmann's that say and do insane things all day long, but they just get a pat on the back from the media and say thank you, may I have another.

The Washington Post actually let a little truth slip into their article about the FOX witch hunt.

But there's more to this story than just the usual Lani Guanier human sacrifice ritual:

Fox News Channel host Glenn Beck all but declared war on Jones after a group the adviser founded in 2005, ColorofChange.org, led an advertising boycott against Beck's show to protest his claim that Obama is a racist.

This is yet another example of Fox News annihilation strategy against anyone who criticizes them. And it works.

It's kind of ironic that they constantly accuse Obama of being a "Chicago" politician when it Roger Ailes who adheres to the classic dictum from The Untouchables:

Malone: You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. *That's* the *Chicago* way!

Murdoch and Ailes have made it quite clear that if you mess with Fox they will unleash the crazies. They're taking Van Jones' scalp to send that message. He won't be the last. It's not a coincidence that the Washington Post put this surprisingly insightful paragraph far down in the story. In fact, I'm a bit surprised they let it slip through at all.

From The Late Show with David Letterman, July 24, 2009.