Obama: Vilsack 'Jumped the Gun'

In an interview that aired Friday, President Obama told ABC’s Good Morning America that in firing Shirley Sherrod from the Department of Agriculture, Secretary Tom Vilsack "jumped the gun, partly because we now live in this media culture where something goes up on YouTube or a blog and everybody scrambles." On Thursday, Obama personally apologized to Sherrod. "I've told my team and I told my agencies that we have to make sure that we're focusing on doing the right thing instead of what looks to be politically necessary at that very moment," he said to ABC. "We have to take our time and, and think these issues through." Obama cited trying "to examine what's in our own hearts" rather than "jumping to conclusions and pointing fingers" as an emergent lesson from the Sherrod situation. Sherrod came under fire from conservative activists when Andrew Breitbart posted edited video clips from a speech she made at an NAACP fundraiser, excerpts that right-wingers took as proof that she was racist.