How else, many ask, could you explain the government's unseemly haste to dismiss ShirleySherrod, a civil servant falsely accused of racism by a right-wing blogger?
And since her firing and then the apology, some Republicans including Congressman Steve King of Iowa have raised these allegations that ShirleySherrod got a government payout as part of a previous settlement with Black Farmers.
ShirleySherrod, the former rural development director for the Agriculture Department in Georgia found that out the hard way when she was fired by the Obama administration for her delivery of a supposedly racist speech.