When Shirley Sued Andrew

In the days of old media superiority, libel lawsuits were to be feared. Newspaper and television companies paid their lawyers big bucks to ensure the stories they published were solid and sound. Yet subjects of stories still got angry and reporters got sued.

In these hopping days of new media, editors and bloggers don't seem to care as much about getting sued. After all, they always have the power of taking something down. And besides, a bit of scandal does wonders for one's click count.

So I have to believe that Andrew Breitbart, the conservative new media mogul who runs a handful of sites all with the same political bent, isn't too worried about today's news that Shirley Sherrod plans to sue him for defamation. Sherrod is the former Agriculture Department employee who was fired after Breitbart posted an excerpt of a speech Sherrod gave suggesting she treated white farmers with less regard than she did black farmers. That problem was that the excerpt was part of a longer speech Sherrod gave about racial reconciliation and it wasn't representative of her core point: that her own views about race had evolved.

So far, Breitbart hasn't really apologized to Sherrod. And now, Sherrod says she doesn't want an apology. "He had to know that he was targeting me," she said today at the annual convention of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Breitbart hasn't commented on the lawsuit threat. But on his website that originally posted the excerpt, BigGovernment.com, the story is in the top spot. It's gotten 650 comments and counting, most of whom appear to be supporting Breitbart.

"One word, folks. DISCOVERY. Breitbart will take that race baiter apart," writes JohnK144, whose profile picture has a background of the American flag.

And writes Frances Genau: "My money is on Andrew. Big time. The countersuit of her slander of him by saying he wants to enslave blacks along with the depositions, interrogatories and discovery are going to be beyond epic"

Critics of Breitbart also offered comments, though because of the ranking system of the site, they tended to be given low reputation numbers.

A user called liberal_Jew343 has perhaps the lowest reputation ranking of those leaving comments (a negative 131). He or she posted several comments, all along the same lines as this: "Can I put in my bid to buy this site now since it would sold anyway to cover the millions Breitbart will be forced to pony up? LMAO!!!!!!!!"