The Obama administration--namely Secretary Tom Vilsack--made a huge blunder by not handling this sensitive issue with care and discretion.  Any White House official, and any administration official--who took the ball and simply rolled it without asking questions, digging, or fact-checking--is guilty of helping to slander this woman's name and reputation.  Publicly.

I expect FOX News to give me snap judgements and slanted information.  But I am appalled at the administration for not checking their sources, and reaching such a final and usually irreversible judgement--publicly--about one of their own, that has left them with egg on their face, and a woman's reputation swallowed whole, then thrown up and spit on the sidewalk.

How do you undo this mess-up? 

Even if she got her job back, talk about a hostile work environment.  Sometimes just the air of suspicion is enough to kill long standing relationships once thought secure.  She said on the Today show, and CNN, and anyone else who would listen--that she implored her coworkers, superiors and the administration to check the whole statement, her record, and probably expected her "friends" to come to her defense.  But, as usually happens with even ordinary people, a workplace trying to "get out ahead" on a bad story or accusation is met with a rush to judgement, often with an undeserving employee getting the boot, totally deserted by people who are supposed to know them.  Do you think she'd want to be around those people again?  "Oops; sorry Miss Shirley!"

Anyone who has experienced this can imagine how deserted she felt, and feels.  There really isn't a way to fix what was broken here.

What always sickens me in this type of "oops" situation, is that maybe 60 percent of those who heard the initial story + her edited soundbyte, will even hear that there was a retraction by her former employer, by NAACP, and the administration. Maybe 40 percent will also hear that she was offered her job back and that her former boss apologized. Maybe 25 percent will hear the context of her initial statement, and of that maybe 15 percent will sit through and listen to her full statement at length.

In other words, you can't unring a bell.

Yes, we all know now that she isn't a racist; at least those percentage of us who 1) still pay attention to a story beyond 24 hrs, 2) believe what we hear for what it is, and 3) aren't conspiracy theorists or bigoted people who won't like this outcome, and will therefore ignore it.

I think that this woman is owed some measure, a big ass measure, of broadcast excellence--across various media, totally and singularly devoted to CLEARING HER NAME, in a way that will leave no one doubting it nor never hearing of it.

It must be clear and substantial.

Additionally, she should sue the pants off of whomever started this whole thing, and/or carried it further without due process and exploration it deserves--for slander.