panel to discuss from princeton, professor cornell west; georgetown university's sociologist michael eric dyson; two conservative columnists-- michael gerson of "the washington post" and john fund of "the wall street journal;" and abigail thernstrom, a bush appointee to the civil rights commission. afterward, i'll have some thoughts on the role the media played in all of this. but first, race in america on "face the nation." captioning sponsored by cbs "face the nation" with cbs news chief washington correspondent bob schieffer. and now from cbs news in washington, bob schieffer. >> schieffer: good morning again. a lot to talk about so we're going to get right to it. we're going to begin with the shirley sherrod case. by now, i'm sure you know the story, how a heavily edited tape that was taken totally out of context was put on the web. the result was that the administration, without checking to see what the rest of the tape said, fired the woman. then, came a lot of apologies and the offer of a new job. michael eric dyson, you are writing a book about barack obama and race. and it seems to me,

michael eric dyson, you are writing a book about barack obama and race. and it seems to me, after making all of these eloquent statements about race during the campaign, now when race comes up as an issue this white house seems to commit some gaffe or stumbles. >> what we saw with the sherrod case was quite remarkable. you have the reptilian repugnance of certain elements of the right wing who edit history for their own vicious and devious purposes. then you have the marrying of on one hand historical amnesia with an exaggerated sense of racial injury, which leads to a kind of racial privileging and a kind of white innocence that i think takes off here. a lot of white people think in the age of obama, we're living in a post-racial era. >> let me turn to michael gerson. you've written a lot about this. do you think this was just sloppy work by one guy on a website, then was picked up by some of the media? or is this something that goes deeper than that? >> i think it goes deeper. i think we're in a moment where you have people on the left and on the right

professor michael eric dyson. >> the facts are critical. thank you. >> good point. facts are critical. harry, to you. >> never let the facts get in the way after good story. >>> to the gulf oil spill. grueling tropical storm, hundreds of miles away, threatening efforts to plug the leak. cbs news correspondent kelly cobiella in grand isle, louisiana, yet once again with the latest. good morning. >> reporter: good morning, harry. drilling on this relief well has now been halted for a time because of the storm brewing out in the caribbean. it is not yet a tropical storm but i could become one in the next couple of days. nearly all of the computer models have it headed into the gulf and the direction of those ships working on the well. the work to finally plug bp's blown-out well is now on hold because of this storm. and hundreds of miles from the gulf and yet it could head towards the spill site. ships on the surface need to get out on of the way well ahead of time if we are forced to move off the site because of weather the entire operation will be delayed 14 days. >>