Andrew Breitbart

A federal court ruled to allow a defamation case against news man John Stossel to move forward. The case neatly parallels the tribulations endured by Department of Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod earlier this summer and could provide a strong foundation for her to pursue a defamation suit of her own against blogger Andrew Breitbart.

Shirley Sherrod, the Agriculture Department employee who lost her job after a conservative website painted her as a racist, is planning a lawsuit in what could be a landmark case for the blogosphere.

Agricultural Department director Shirley Sherrod and CNN editor Octavia Nasr both lost their jobs because they said things that sounded bad out of context. In the pressure of a lighting-fast news cycle, did their employers act too fast?