U.S. Senate candidate Elaine Marshall lit into Richard Burr yesterday, comparing the senator with his former mentor, Jesse Helms, for his use of “secret holds” to block the nominations of minority judges to the 4^th Circuit Court of Appeals. Marshall raked Burr over the coals for putting the holds on Pres. Obama’s nominations of Judges James Wynn and Albert Diaz. Both are North Carolinians; Wynn serves  with the N.C. Court of Appeals, and Diaz serves in Charlotte as one of three N.C. Business Judges. As Marshall explained to ThinkProgress, Wynn, a former chair of the American Bar Association’s Judicial Division, didn’t even get a committee hearing when he was nominated for the same position by Pres. Clinton in 1999. It almost goes without saying that it was Helms who blocked Wynn, an African American. Burr publicly supported Wynn’s nomination by Obama, but has since put a hold on the nomination. Helms was the master of that seamy move, and as Marshall explains, “Jesse Helms is his mentor and he learned his lessons well.” See Marshall below.

The Stupid(est) Thing of the Week, which is usually a Friday feature,  was announced yesterday — but not to worry, there are always lots of contenders, and this week was particularly ripe for the picking. So here is the top runner-up for this week's SOTW Award: the GOP U.S. Senate primary in Louisiana.

Sen. “Diaper” Dave Vitter, who was revealed in 2007 as a steady-rollin’ prostitute aficionado who liked for the women to put diapers on him — and more recently, was accused of keeping a key aide on staff, even after Vitter found out the aide had assaulted a female acquaintance — is, amazingly enough, running for re-election. Republicans were concerned about Vitter’s chances against Democratic candidate, Rep. Charlie Melancon, but ta-daa, another candidate — former Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Chet Traylor — entered the GOP primary at the last minute, giving the party faithful some temporary stress relief. Make that  very temporary stress relief, because now it’s been revealed that Traylor has problems of his own. No, he’s not a serial whoremonger like Vitter, and we haven’t heard anything about a diaper fetish, but Traylor is currently having a big fling with his own stepson’s wife. OK, it's his stepson's estranged wife, but still ...

Oh, by the way, Traylor's stepson? He's the son of Traylor’s first wife, who, according to her first husband, was “significantly involved” with Traylor before the husband divorced her. Now, I personally couldn’t care less about Traylor’s private life, nor Vitter’s. But it's always fun to see the latest gasbag "family values” politician exposed as a hypocrite. And now Louisiana Republicans have two fine representatives of "family values" to choose from. Just think, if Traylor winds up marrying his former stepdaughter-in-law, the event could be turned into a Family Values Hypocrites reunion. Traylor could even ask Diaper Dave to be his Best Man. Or maybe Larry Craig, or Newt Gingrich, or Rudy Giuliani, or Mark Foley,  or Buz Lukens, or Dan Crane, or, well, you get the picture.

• U.S. Senator David "Diaper Dave" Vitter (R-Pampers)

Congress may have passed a health care reform law, but that doesn’t mean the fight for a stronger public option is over. Yesterday, Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), co-chair of the House’s progressive caucus, introduced a bill that would offer consumers a choice between private plans and a public plan that would make insurance more affordable. The bill has 121 co-sponsors in the House, and although there’s no chance it will be passed during the current congressional session, Woolsey told the RawStory site, “We are introducing the public option now so it will be available as a ready-made offset or deficit reducer in this or the next Congress." The Congressional Budget Office, an impartial group relied on by both parties, has said a public option would help reduce the federal deficit. Polls have repeatedly shown that a large majority of Americans are in favor of a public option. We won’t get one this year, but it’s good to know it’s not going away, either.

• Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA)

“It hurts me that they didn’t even attempt to see what is happening here, they didn’t care.” -- Shirley Sherrod.

Consider this an early edition of our usual Friday feature, Stupid Thing of the Week. Shirley Sherrod was unceremoniously fired  from her job at the Dept of Agriculture (USDA), just a few hours after FoxNews broadcast heavily edited, misleading, completely out-of-context bits from a speech she gave at an NAACP event earlier this year. As far as I can tell, everyone involved in her firing acted cynically and disgracefully — except Sherrod.

The video — which purported to “prove” Sherrod is racist, although the full video of Sherrod’s speech showed just the opposite — was the cynical, lyin’-assed product of one Andrew Breitbart, one of the most virulent, ruthless ultra-right online bloggers. If there’s one central villain in this story, it’s Breitbart, and here’s hoping Sherrod sues his butt off.

FoxNews broadcast Breitbart’s video, and repeatedly blasted both Sherrod and the NAACP, without even once contacting Sherrod for confimation, explanation, or even comment. And as far as doing their journalistic duty to be sure they knew, and presented, the correct context of the woman’s remarks? You’ve got to be kidding. Let’s just say the network continued its standard hyper-partisan version of “reporting.”

The NAACP, upon hearing of the Breitbart video, quickly condemned Sherrod’s “racist comments,” although they had the entire speech on tape and should have known better. But no, it was “cover our asses” time at the NAACP, and they threw the woman under the bus. Completely disgraceful.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, USDA honcho Tom  Vilsack fired Sherrod from her job — of course, without any knowledge of the real facts of the situation, in a pathetic administration attempt to cover its own ass, no matter what. That’s disgraceful enough, but it also turns out that Pres. Obama was briefed on “the situation” (aka potential political damage) and the decision to fire Sherrod, and went along with the whole sordid deal — a performance worthy of Nixon.

Then, ta-daa, the truth started to come out, Sherrod was vindicated, Breitbart was recognized for being a lying, amoral jerk, and Vilsack quickly apologized and asked the unjustly accused woman to come back to work. She hasn’t yet decided whether she’ll do so, and who could blame her if she didn’t?

The stupidest thing in all of this debacle, though, is the Obama administration’s habit of caving whenever FoxNews’ fabricates a “scandal.” First we had Van Jones, run out of office by Glenn Beck’s lies; then it was ACORN, an entire organization ruined by one of their offices’ foolish decision to play along with the since-debunked “video pimp” James O’Keefe . And now the Sherrod firing. Why in God’s name does this White House kowtow to right-wing lies? Is it to “appease the right”? Do Obama & Co. really think the right is suddenly going to like them and quit criticizing them? Hey, Obama White House! Somebody there, starting at the top, needs to grow a pair, begin hitting back, and expose FoxNews for the collection of partisan hacks it is. At the very, very least, how about checking out the validity of the right’s attacks before you sacrifice people, like Shirley Sherrod, who are doing what you hired them to do?

View Sherrod’s unedited speech below.