In meeting, Messina praised Sherrod handling  —  In a closed staff meeting Tuesday morning, a senior administration praised elements of the White House's initial response to a partial video of a speech by a Department of Agriculture official — a response that the Administration has since reversed.

Sherrod: I'm a Victim of Breitbart, Fox ‘Racism’  —  Shirley Sherrod, the former Agriculture Department Georgia Director of Rural Development, says she is a victim.  A victim of poor reporting and, as she contends, clear bias and racist coverage from both Andrew Breitbart and Fox News.

Shirley Sherrod — My Take — By: Jonah Goldberg  —  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.

On Lacking All Conviction  —  Let's take a moment to understand what we've seen over the past several days.  As of last week, the Tea Party was a movement whose leadership included a man who once called the first black president of the United States, “a welfare thug,” and who attempted to satirize the NAACP in the following fashion:

Breitbart's New Conspiracy Theory: The ‘Purported’ Farmer's Wife Is A Plant  —  Two white farmers who were supposedly discriminated against by former USDA official Shirley Sherrod spoke out on her behalf yesterday, saying “no way in the world” is she racist.

Public Radio Publicist Apologizes For Controversial Remarks About Limbaugh  —  This morning, The Daily Caller posted a story about an email message radio publicist Sarah Spitz reportedly sent to Journolist, a now-defunct listserv.  —  “If you were in the presence of a man having a heart attack, how would you respond?”

Meet the New Journolist, Smaller Than the Old Journolist  —  Blogosphere, please join me in celebrating the birth of Cabalist, the wittily-named successor to Ezra Klein's infamous Journolist, the listserv of liberal bloggers, pundits and academics that inadvertently brought down (very temporarily) …