Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said today he is reconsidering his department’s controversial decision to fire a black USDA official over a speech she gave in March at an NAACP function. Shirley Sherrod was pressured to resign Monday after a right-wing website posted a deceptively edited video of the speech that appeared to show Sherrod admitting she withheld help from a white farmer for racial reasons. What the edited video did not show is Sherrod describing how she ended up going to great lengths to help the farmer save his land. After her ouster, the white farmer, Roger Spooner, appeared on CNN praising Sherrod.

Roger Spooner: “I never was treated no better, no nicer, and looked after than Shirley. She done — she done a magnificent job. I don’t have words — I don’t have words to explain it.”

Shirley Sherrod said her boss at the Department of Agriculture called her on Monday and demanded she resign right away, “because you are going to be on 'Glenn Beck' tonight.” The NAACP also originally supported Sherrod’s ouster, but on Tuesday NAACP President Ben Jealous apologized to Sherrod. Jealous said the NAACP had been “snookered” by Fox News and Tea Party activist Andrew Breitbart into believing she had harmed white farmers because of racial bias. The video was first posted on a website run by Breitbart, a former editor at the Drudge Report. Last year Breitbart played a key role in the distribution of the doctored videos that purported to show ACORN employees giving advice to a pimp and a prostitute. Breitbart said last night he posted the Sherrod video in an effort to get back at the NAACP for passing a resolution calling on the “Tea Party” movement to repudiate racism.