Next season, Saturday Night Live (SNL) will have to do a skit about the Shirley Sherrod story. Sherrod was fired by the Obama Administration on Monday from her position as Georgia State Director for the United State Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development after a video surfaced of her saying she did not do all she could for a white farmer. Sherrod is black. She was speaking at a NAACP Banquet. The video had been edited and Sherrod was really talking about reconciliation and what she learned 24 years ago.

SNL will have a lot of material just by watching Wednesday’s White House Press briefing. If that is not enough, all they will need is a copy of USDA’s Secretary Tom Vilsack’s press briefing a couple of hours later. They can also find some funny lines just by watching Fox News coverage of the incident.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was bombarded with questions from several angles. He apologized to Sherrod for the entire administration. I think he did the apology at least three times. Gibbs looked tired and seemed to want to be about anywhere except in front of the White House press corps, who have mostly turned sour on the administration.

Vilsack was out on an island alone. He said he made the call to fire Sherrod by himself, but not too many people believe him. He apologized several times, too. The Obama Administration needed to make this problem go away, and they did, but failed to have all the facts and the whole thing backfired into four days of press coverage. After watching his press briefing, I understand why Vilsack never got any traction as a candidate for President. The USDA Secretary position is supposed to be a nice quiet place without much publicity – a nice place to hide.

Now folks are wondering which Obama Cabinet Secretary is more inept, Secretary Vilsack or Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar.

Sherrod graciously accepted everyone’s apology. Vilsack offered Sherrod “a unique opportunity” within the USDA which probably means a pay raise. Maybe she should take his job.

Fox News continued to cover it although they, along with the Obama Administration, were part of the problem. Both ran with the Sherrod story without checking all the facts. Bill O’Reilly admitted that on his show, but continued to pick on Sherrod for other comments – kind of like “we screwed up, but…”

Overall, Wednesday provided us with a “unique opportunity” to see a Presidential Administration backtrack and apologize, and apologize, and apologize. It was also a “unique opportunity” to see how the leader in cable news handled their screw-up. Both sides get a “C” in my book. They could have done better.

Although everyone learned a lot from the Sherrod incident, it won’t be long before it happens again. Presidential Administrations have to act quickly to keep the negative press from taking over the news cycle. The media must run quickly with stories to be competitive in our fast-paced world.

Sadly, the days of Woodward and Bernstein are long gone.