Tom Vilsack is a guy who lives for his job, but that did not stop him from telling President Obama a few weeks ago that he was willing to hand in his resignation.
Having stepped on the true third rail of American politics – – race – – Vilsack was willing to throw himself from the sled before somebody else did it for him.
In a 75-minute, exclusive interview Tuesday, Vilsack, the secretary of agriculture, told me about his suspension of Shirley Sherrod and his subsequent meetings with President Obama about it. Vilsack also spoke frankly about how without the labor of illegal immigrants, the price of food in the United States would cost “three, four, or five times more than it does now.”