Shirley Sherrod on Obama: 'He's My President' -- No Apology Needed

The suddenly famous Shirley Sherrod got a chance to speak directly with President Obama Thursday afternoon, if only for a few minutes. Sherrod said earlier in the day she would "love" to talk about racial issues with the president, but she wasn't looking for an apology from him after being unceremoniously booted from a federal job over a misunderstanding about a speech she gave on race relations.

The White House said Obama reached Sherrod by phone shortly after 12 noon and expressed his regret about recent events. Obama told her Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack's apology for her unwarranted dismissal was sincere and he hoped she would continue her "hard work on behalf of those in need." They spoke for seven minutes.

On Wednesday, Sherrod was offered a new job with the Agriculture Department along with an apology from USDA Secretary Vilsack, who had forced her to resign when a video surfaced of her admitting she didn't do as much as she could have done to assist a struggling white farmer in Georgia. Turned out, the video first disseminated by a conservative website only showed part of Sherrod's March speech before a local chapter of the NAACP. She had said that the encounter with the farmer took place in 1986 (before she worked for the government), was a learning experience for her and that she came to realize that economic inequity -- not race -- was the important issue.

Sherrod said conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, who posted the video clip on his BigGovernment.com website, "was willing to destroy me . . . in order to try to destroy the NAACP." The civil rights organization had drawn Breitbart's attention after it accused the Tea Party movement of racism.

Sherrod said she regretted the Obama administration's rush to judgment, but has no hard feelings toward the president: "As I said before, he's my president. . . . I think you need to understand a little more what life is like. I'd love to talk to him, though, or people in his administration." Sherrod said Obama, who spent many of his formative years in Hawaii, is "not someone who has experienced some of the things I've experienced."

She has not decided whether to take Vilsack up on his new job offer -- "I need to think about it," she told the Associated Press, which also compiled her remarks from various television talk show interviews. She told NBC she was not particularly enthusiastic about one position that has been mentioned: dealing with discrimination issues internally at USDA.

Sherrod made the rounds, appearing on or being interviewed by CNN, ABC's "Good Morning America," CBS' "The Early Show," NBC's "Today" show and MSNBC.