Thread: Blogger quits Edwards campaign in light of conservative cri

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Blogger quits Edwards campaign in light of conservative criticism
February 12, 2007 21:13 EST

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- One of the chief campaign bloggers for Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards quit today after conservative critics raised questions about her history of provocative online messages.

Amanda Marcotte posted on her personal blog that the criticism --quote-- "was creating a situation where I felt that every time I coughed, I was risking the Edwards campaign." Marcotte said she resigned from her position today and that her resignation was accepted by the campaign.

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, demanded last week that Edwards fire Marcotte and a second blogger, Melissa McEwan. Donohue has called them --quote-- "foul-mouthed bigots."

Edwards called some of the online messages personally offensive but decided to keep Marcotte and McEwan on staff.

An Edwards spokeswoman confirmed that Marcotte is no longer working with the campaign but declined to elaborate.

Second blogger quits Edwards campaign
February 13, 2007 19:54 EST

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- A second blogger working for Democratic presidential prospect John Edwards quit today.

Melissa McEwan left the campaign under pressure from conservative critics who said her previous online messages were anti-Catholic.

McEwan says the attacks made her a liability to the Edwards campaign.

McEwan's resignation comes just one day after another blogger, Amanda Marcotte, left the Edwards staff for similar reasons.

Both had become a flashpoint for conservative critics. Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, had called Marcotte and McEwan --quote-- "foul-mouthed bigots."

Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, responded that he considered the bloggers past writings personally offensive and added that similar content would not be tolerated. But he decided to keep Marcotte and McEwan on staff to give them "a fair shake."

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The hiring of these foul-mouthed radicals calls into question Edwards' decision-making ability. It also calls into question his leadership abilities, given that he first bowed to pressure and fired Marcotte, then bowed to pressure and rehired her, then stepped out of the picture and allowed to to resign, but not until after she made a total arse of herself on the site during the kiss-off.

Bill Donohue is just as bad as Abe Foxman.

What exactly did these girls say?

Here was one take on the sorry episode:

Tuesday, February 13, 2007
The Edwards Blogger - The Saga Ends
Posted by Dean Barnett | 9:51 AM

Those of us who were familiar with Amanda Marcotte’s oeuvre were stunned when the Edwards campaign hired her. The angry atheist cum feminist routine isn’t just a shtick for her. If you know her work, you know that she was a chronically furious and barely-in-control individual. I would never have taken the chance of hiring such a person at my company, and we weren’t doing business with 300 million people watching.

Thus, the denouement of her relationship with the Edwards campaign is strangely appropriate. She was trying to play nice. She even scrubbed her most recent blog-postings of all obscenities. Believe me, this was a departure from ordinary practices.

But even when she was trying, Marcotte just didn’t have it in her. She couldn’t be made presentable for public consumption. This was one Eliza Doolittle that no Henry Higgins could transform. Amanda Marcotte is, and believe it or not this is the kindest way to put it, an extremely abnormal person who has the barest acquaintance with reality and what’s considered appropriate in the real world.

Her blog post yesterday that put the ultimate endgame afoot is revealing. In case you forgot, Marcotte wrote:

“The Christian version of the virgin birth is generally interpreted as super-patriarchal, where god is viewed as so powerful he can impregnate without befouling himself by touching a woman, and women are nothing but vessels."

Mind you, she wrote this while she was trying to be a perfect little lady. She thought this was so mundane a sentiment that it wouldn’t raise any eyebrows. Such is life in Amanda’s world.

LAST NIGHT, AMANDA WROTE HER angry resignation letter at her Pandagon site. Typically and tediously, she vowed to fight the patriarchy. More revealing than the post were the comments she sprinkled in the thread throughout the evening. As the evening wore on, her remarkable anger and her even more remarkable detachment from reality became increasingly apparent.

At 10:00 p.m. she wrote:

I 100% agree that this was a targeted hit on atheists in politics.

By 10:43, her sense of victimhood was congealing into an ideological framework:

On the why did I apologize thing—I never apologized for my opinions or beliefs. I do feel bad if people read my comments out of context and are hurt, but I don’t think that’s my fault so much as the fault of people who take my writing out of context.

By 11:49, the old fighting Amanda had returned to full flight:

All people claiming to be good Christians who agitated for me to be fired, one question:

Who would Jesus witchhunt?

Think hard before answering, assholes.

What can one say about such a sorry spectacle? Personally, I think her reader Lizz summed things up the best, commenting:

Amanda, I am SO sorry about this : I feel Ill! F*CK F*CK F*CK the Rethuglc*nt noise machine!! All I ask is that you keep fighting the good fight against the f*ckwit Cirstians. Remember - ‘Keep your rosaries off of my Ovaries’

For readers who weren’t familiar with Pandagon prior to last week, take my word for it – Lizz’s comment is a typical day at the virtual office.

SO NOW WHAT? Specifically, where do the Edwards campaign and the Nutroots go from here? As of this writing, the Nutroots have maintained an oddly monolithic silence on the matter that had them so agitated and united not 5 days earlier.

While they’re thinking things through, I’ll extend a helping hand. The Nutroots’ play is obvious: The Edwards campaign gave Marcotte not one but two chances that she didn’t deserve. Marcotte blew it. If the Nutroots can summon a little maturity just for a moment, they’ll realize that Edwards did the right thing in belatedly swinging the axe and forego the ritual declaration of hostilities.

Even if that weren’t the right thing to do, it would be the smart thing. If for some bizarre reason the Nutroots feel that Marcotte’s dismissal was unwarranted, they’ll still look ridiculous if they don’t fall into line behind the Edwards campaign. They’ve threatened vicious rants and non-support – Edwards will look to have defied them if they take a hissy-fit this morning.

And in spite of said hissy-fit, the world will keep spinning for the Edwards campaign much as it did while Amanda Marcotte was spewing spittle on an Edwards-owned keyboard. Other candidates will note the paper-tiger qualities of the blogopshere, and will put on their calendars a date for a far more decisive Sister Souljah moment than the one John Edwards had.

As for Edwards, he looks irredeemably pathetic. There’s a simple reason for this - he is irredeemably pathetic. He hired someone who had no business being legitimated by a mainstream political campaign. He then bowed to pressure and fired her. He then bowed to pressure again and unfired her. And then he left the stage to let her resign. In the wake of all these stumbles and pratfalls, he looks like a careless fool. He also may have alienated the Fightin’ Nutroots to boot. Well played!

As for larger lessons in this ridiculous saga, I can only think of one: You can take the girl out of Blogistan, but you can’t take Blogistan out of the girl.


Compliments? Complaints? Contact me at Soxblog@aol.com.
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O'Reilly did a segment the other night and read what they posted. It was so vile and disgusting that I can not repeat it here. And from what I read, this was just a sample of their eloquence.

They have a right to post whatever garbage they want. But, it is really foolish for any serious presidential hopeful to employ people who have this level of hatred and bigotry. They are no better than the Klan.

There should not be any place for this kind of mean-spirited bigotry in any presidential candidate's campaign. It would never be tolerated towards blacks, Jews, gays, or Muslims.

These people are now attempting to make themselves the victims of "right wing conservatives" and William Donahue. They just need to take a good, long look at themselves to see where the blame lies. Of course, they will never do that.

And as for Edwards, good riddance. Any one who has so much trouble trying to make a decision over a situation like this does not belong in the White House where he will be called upon to make even more important decisions.