Tom Vilsack And His Boss In The White House Should've Talked To Willie Nelson First.

Willie Nelson, from the Huffington Post:

Shirley Sherrod has been a great friend to me, Farm Aid and family farmers for 25 years. She has always worked to improve economic opportunities for family farmers in the South, going back to when I first met her as the director of the Georgia Field Office for the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund. Like Ms. Sherrod herself has said, she's always tried to help those who don't have so that they can have a little more.
The real story of Shirley Sherrod deserved to be told a long time ago. She has had an amazing impact on the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of families and communities throughout the South. Farmers of every race have struggled with the income inequities that have persisted for generations, and advocates like Ms. Sherrod have moved mountains to ensure that families can remain in their homes and on their farms.
While all family farmers in our country face an uphill battle to stay on their land, growing good food for rest of us, black farmers have lost their land at an alarming rate, faster than any other family farmers. Lending discrimination and inequities in agriculture programs are largely responsible for the shrinking number of black farmers. Farm Aid began supporting the Federation in 1985, where Shirley worked at the time, because of the group's unique ability to reach out and help struggling farm families in the South. Many had owned their land for generations and were, and continue to be, under constant threat. We continue to support the Federation's work to this day, and hundreds of farmers are still on their land because of Ms. Sherrod's efforts.
During her time at the Federation, she fought to make sure that family farmers got what they needed to stay on their land. She has been a national leader for family farmers and a compassionate, courageous advocate for all struggling family farmers. Shirley Sherrod has dedicated her life to working on behalf of family farmers, civil rights and the alleviation of poverty and it's up to Secretary Vilsack to right this wrong immediately.
This country desperately needs more farm advocates with Ms. Sherrod's expertise. But this is not just about a job -- it's about ensuring that Shirley Sherrod has the opportunity to continue to support family farmers and the rural poor, something she has spent her life doing.

As I've said here before: if Texas wants to secede, let 'em. But we get to keep Willie Nelson.

The President, The Professor and The Sergeant; Is It Happy Hour Yet?

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the editor-in-chief of The Root, where he RSVP'd to President Obama's White House invitation last night:

"It was very kind of the President to phone me today. Vernon Jordan is absolutely correct: my unfortunate experience will only have a larger meaning if we can all use this to diminish racial profiling and to enhance fairness and equity in the criminal justice system for poor people and for people of color.

And to that end, I look forward to studying the history of racial profiling in a new documentary for PBS. I told the President that my principal regret was that all of the attention paid to his deeply supportive remarks during his press conference had distracted attention from his health care initiative. I am pleased that he, too, is eager to use my experience as a teaching moment, and if meeting Sgt. [James] Crowley for a beer with the President will further that end, then I would be happy to oblige.

After all, I first proposed that Sgt. Crowley and I meet as early as last Monday. If my experience leads to the lessening of the occurrence of racial profiling, then I would find that enormously gratifying. Because, in the end, this is not about me at all; it is about the creation of a society in which 'equal justice before law' is a lived reality."

Prof. Gates is right; the Cambridge incident has taken the spotlight off health care reform and caused the White House to go off-message. Critics of President Obama--almost all of them white--have eagerly picked at the scab of racism over the past few days because the president had a human moment in response to a question about Gates's arrest at his press conference Wednesday night. Many of these same critics traffic in race-baiting for a living, and have the credibility of the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan lecturing at a tolerance debate.

Pour some pints of Guinness, Mr. President, and have a frank discussion with Prof. Gates and Sgt. Crowley. Don't apologize for your emotions, and don't listen to those critics who gleefully seek to exploit this high-profile profiling.

My brush isn't broad enough to paint the Cambridge Police Department or Sgt. Crowley as blatant racists, but--unfortunately again in America--the palette is down to black versus white.

Pity The Poor White Guy, Huh, Bill?