This morning, President Barack Obama apologized to former USDA official Shirley Sherrod for her forced resignation based on a highly misleading video produced by right-wing media tycoon Andrew Breitbart. Obama “expressed his regret” in a phone call with Sherrod, which she described as “a very good conversation.” Sherrod also said she is considering suing Breitbart — who has refused to apologize or retract the story — for defamation, noting, “He was willing to destroy me…in order to try to destroy the NAACP.”

But Sherrod isn’t the only one denouncing Breitbart’s deceitful tactics. Speaking to the Daily Caller, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) called it “unfortunate” that Breitbart “didn’t lay out the whole story, as opposed to a part of it.” “They only put a little piece of the story out there and people make judgments and they rush and they make bad decisions. They make rash decisions,” Boehner said.

Meanwhile, Fox New anchor Shep Smith — whose network breathlessly promoted the smear campaign — slammed Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com as “widely discredited,” and blasted the White House for acting on its video. Smith even called out his own employer, saying, “The video, taken completely out of context, it ran all over the Internet, and television, including on this network:”

We here at Studio B did not run the video and did not reference the story in any way for many reasons, among them: we didn’t know who shot it, we didn’t know when it was shot, we didn’t know the context of the statement, and because of the history of the videos on the site where it was posted, in short we do not and did not trust the source. [...]

[The White House based its decision on] an edited videotape on a widely discredited website that has had inaccurate postings of videos in the past–edited to the point where the world was deceived. … What in the world has happened to our industry and the White House?

Watch it:

As Media Matters documented, a number of high-profile journalists have joined Smith in condemning Breitbart. CNN’s Anderson Cooper said Breitbart’s video was “clearly edited to deceive and slander Miss Sherrod.” Cooper added that Breitbart’s efforts to “weasel his way out of taking responsibility for what he did to Miss Sherrod is a classic example of what is wrong with our national discourse.” Politico’s Ben Smith noted that “Breitbart’s sites now have a growing credibility problem.”

Even conservative journalists, like the Weekly Standard’s John McCormack, denounced Breitbart. “Breitbart’s posting of the partial clip, which leaves out crucial information, was unfair to Sherrod,” McCormack wrote. “Sherrod deserves an apology from Breitbart for posting the edited video.” The National Review’s Jonah Goldberg agreed, writing Sherrod is “owed apologies from pretty much everyone, including my good friend Andrew Breitbart.”

However, Breitbart has at least one defender in hate radio host Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh attacked Shep Smith for “cav[ing]” and said the NAACP should now be spelled “R-A-C-I-S-M,” Limbaugh added.

Earlier this week, the Senate finally voted 60-40 to extend unemployment insurance for the millions of Americans who are unable to find work due to the poor economy. One senator who voted against extending these benefits was Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), who cited the deficit as his reason for opposing an extension. He gave the following statement to the press:

“I support extending unemployment benefits for Nebraskans and Americans who remain out of work. However, I opposed the Senate’s unemployment bill today because it should have, and it could have, been paid for.

“I oppose another $33 billion in deficit spending and increasing the debt. The six-month extension of unemployment benefits is a priority that can and should be funded. Some of the $70 billion in offsets included in earlier proposals could have been used to offset the $33 billion in new spending in this bill.”

However, today Nelson came out for extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. While the senator cites the cost of extending unemployment benefits for Americans who are down on their luck and unable to find work as a reason to oppose extending unemployment insurance, he is endorsing massively expanding the deficit by extending Bush’s tax cuts for the richest Americans. Extending unemployment benefits has a relatively tiny budgetary cost of $33 billion, but extending the Bush tax cuts for one year alone would add $115 billion to the federal budget deficit. Effectively, the senator is not standing up for fiscal discipline — he is standing up for the richest Americans over those who are the worst off.

Last week, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan called for allowing the Bush tax cuts he championed in 2001 to fully expire, as scheduled, at the end of the year. His reversal dealt a blow to Republicans who are calling for an unpaid-for permanent extension of the cuts for the rich, even falsely claiming that they increase government revenues.

Unsurprisingly, Greenspan’s comments have irked some right-wing pundits. The strongly discredited economist and former member of President Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board Arthur Laffer criticized Greenspan on the Fox Business network, questioning his patriotism and accusing him of practicing “bad economics.” Media Matters has the transcript:

HOST: Hey, Alan Greenspan says let [all the Bush tax cuts] expire. The former Fed Chairman. Let ‘em all expire.

LAFFER: Good for him. I mean there he goes. Well, I guess he’s out of power. He’s a little old. I don’t think he has any kids. Heck, what does he care? You know, I have six kids. I have eleven grandchildren. You know, I really care about the future of this country and I really don’t want to be taxed into poverty. I really don’t think it’s smart in this day and age, with this type of unemployment, to tax people who work more and to pay people who don’t work more. That just is silly. It’s bad economics.

Watch it:

Actually, Laffer’s recent suggestion to suspend all federal taxes should be called “bad economics,” not Greenspan’s recognition that his suggested policy didn’t work. As Media Matters’ Walid Zafar points out, “No serious economist on the left, center or right actually believes this stuff [Laffer is saying]. It’s quackonomics. It resonates well with the Tea Party crowd, but is without a foundation.”

In the past, Laffer held a different view of Greenspan and his policies. Laffer “supported Alan Greenspan being reappointed [as Fed Chairman] twice” and, in 2004, called Greenspan’s work “exquisite,” saying that he “ha[d] done one of the best jobs on monetary policy ever.” Yet, now that Greenspan is “out of power” and “a little old,” Laffer apparently thinks his economic prowess is gone.

The Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo asked a prescient question last week: “Greenspan at least seems to be coming around to the notion that the conservative economic philosophy is a big sham that doesn’t work in practice. Will the rest of the GOP ever follow?” Apparently not.

–Charlie Eisenhood