Huffington Post:

Former Vermont governor and chair of the Democratic National Committee HOWARD DEAN: The Tea Party called out their racist fringe and I think the Republican Party’s got to stop appealing to its racist fringe. And Fox News is what did that. You put that on. Continuing to cater to this theme of minority racism and stressing comments like this — some of which are taken out of context — does not help the country knit itself together…

More from HuffPost:

[Fox News Sunday] host Chris Wallace countered that Fox had held off on broadcasting the footage in question until the Agriculture Department forced Sherrod out of her job there, but Dean was having none of it.

“It was about to go on Glenn Beck, which is what the administration was afraid of.”

Washington Post:

DEAN: Let’s just be blunt about this. I don’t think Newt Gingrich is a racist, and you’re certainly not a racist, but I think Fox News did something that was absolutely racist.

They took a — they had an obligation to find out what was really in the clip. They had — they had been pushing a theme of black racism with this phony Black Panther crap and this business and Sotomayor and all this other stuff. You — I think you’ve got to be very — I think the — look the Tea Party called out their racist fringe, and I think the Republican Party’s got to stop appealing to its racist fringe. And Fox News is what did that.

Host Chris Wallace — obviously reading from the GOP playbook that instructs right-wing propagandists to shift blame for the incident from Andrew Breitbart, who first posted the heavily edited video, and Fox for its shoddy journalism — attempted to blame the White House for the scandal, by pointing out that Fox didn’t run the video until after Sherrod had been fired.

DEAN: I don’t think it matters whether it was before or after. The question is you played it. You didn’t do your job …

And there’s been this ongoing theme about black racism in America. I agree with Newt [Gingrich] that racism has no place in America, whether it’s black, white, Latino, or anything else.