When Did Sherrod Know?

At Patterico's Pontifications, Lee Stranahan looks at the time line for when Shirley Sherrod learned about the famous "racist" tape.

You know the story – Shirley Sherrod, the USDA and the White House were all blindsided on Monday, July 19th 2010 when Andrew Breitbart released two excerpts of a speech Sherrod had given to the NAACP months before. That same day, the USDA ordered her to resign at the behest of the White House. The USDA later regretted this rash decision, apologized to Mrs. Sherrod and offered her a new job at UDA.

That’s the basic story you’ve heard every time about what happened to Mrs. Sherrod, right? Video is released 7/19/10 and the USDA / White House make a snap decision to fire her.

But that’s not what happened.

Here’s what really happened. Shirley Sherrod knew about the video excerpt on Thursday, July 14th – five days before Breitbart published it on BigGovernment. She immediately let the USDA know about the video. And she also thought she knew where to get the entire video, five days before the clips went public.

That’s what Shirley Sherrod told an audience in August, 2010. The speech was posted by the NAACP but has only gotten a total of 46 views in eight months.