McCain is a Saint – Edwards is a Sinner –update below–
Uproar.
It\’s official.
More from the storm:
\”John Edwards is a decent man who has had his campaign tarnished by
two anti-Catholic, vulgar, trash-talking bigots,\” Donohue wrote in a
statement. \”He has no choice but to fire them immediately.\”The Edwards campaign declined to comment. McEwan and Marcotte did not respond
to e-mails requesting a response.Donohue cited posts that the women made on blogs in the past several months
in which they criticized the pope and the church for its opposition to homosexuality,
abortion and contraception, sometimes using profanity.\”The Catholic church is not about to let something like compassion for
girls get in the way of using the state as an instrument to force women to
bear more tithing Catholics,\” Marcotte wrote on the blog Pandagon on
Dec. 26, in an excerpt cited by Donohue.Among the McEwan posts that Donohue listed was one she posted on Feb. 21,
2006, on her site, Shakespeare\’s Sister. She questioned what religious conservatives
don\’t understand about \”keeping your noses out of our britches, our beds
and our families?\” … ..
Even Terry
Moran is getting in on it. Now I\’ve debated his brother Rick on C-SPAN, but he was nice
to me in the usually off-handed way, inferring that I wasn\’t as wacko (my word, but you catch my drift) as some of the far left bloggers. I guess using the f-bomb was the criteria, though I can\’t be sure. But it\’s just obvious to me what Terry and the wingnuts are
doing. No one wants to be on the opposite end of the religious, especially since
they\’ve been losing steam since Terry Schiavo, and have become nasty towards
everyone. It\’s also a chance for the corporate hack pack to chastise bloggers who have muscled in on their turf.
What a thrill.
Conservatives are desperate. They need an attack, a way to stop our forward
march to \’08. But you\’d think people like Terry Moran would at least look inward
first or at the very least do some reporting. Nah.
What Glenn
said.
So Donahue and people like Michelle Malkin have dug through the archives
of the two Edwards bloggers — Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan — and found
bad words and posts that they claim are offensive. I do not know of many bloggers,
or citizens generally, who do not have some views that would be offensive
to large groups of people and who periodically express those views in less
than demure ways, but if that is going to be the standard, we ought to apply
it universally to all bloggers who are affiliated with political campaigns.
… ..
Judgment from the pew. Meanwhile, they get a pass.
Well, no. I\’m saying if a Catholic votes for Kerry because they support him
on abortion rights that is to cooperate in evil. [MSNBC, Hardball, 10/21/04]We\’ve already won. Who really cares what Hollywood thinks? All these hacks
come out there. Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity
in general and Catholicism in particular. It\’s not a secret, okay? And I\’m
not afraid to say it. … Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public
square without nativity scenes. I like families. I like children. They like
abortions. I believe in traditional values and restraint. They believe in
libertinism. We have nothing in common. But you know what? The culture war
has been ongoing for a long time. Their side has lost. [MSNBC, Scarborough
Country, 12/8/04]
However, when all said and done the bottom line is that candidates and politicians
want to court us, benefit from us and our outreach, without having a clue what\’s
going on inside the progressive blogosphere. Using us is one thing, but actually
getting what\’s going on out here is another.
Did Edwards ever read anything
from the bloggers he hired? Did anyone do any research to see the personalities?
Or was Edwards just trying to court without knowing the substance of what we
do? Does he actually believe that this isn\’t all about getting him to cave and that in doing so he loses? Doesn\’t he remember the smearing of John Kerry?
It\’s swiftboating, blogger style, with the target of reigning in John Edwards to the traditional line. Old school meets new school, game film at eleven.
Bush has stayed alive by ignoring criticism in favor of in your face I\’m always right push back. The Senate vote this week is an example. Against great odds, the Republicans stopped debate on a war. The Democrats just sat their with their debates in their hands. However, that\’s war. If a Democratic candidate can\’t even beat back an attack on his own bloggers just what is he going to be able
to do in the general with the types of people McCain is hiring? It\’s called
hardball. The ones who can play it will be left standing. Edwards is in the
spotlight. Can he play the game? We\’ll know soon enough.
UPDATE (4:40 p.m.): Edwards campaign, accordng to TPMCafe, is in \”bunker\” mode. What a colossal pr fumble.
UPDATE (1:58 p.m.): Bowers has a post that went up during my radio show saying that the Salon report \”is not credible.\” As I said on my show, that third paragraph really is an odd addition considering the preceding words. The only thing that is certain is that no one knows anything right now.
UPDATE (11:20 a.m.): They\’re fired, according to Salon.com. Let me add, read the third paragraph below. We\’ll see what that means later.
The right-wing blogosphere has gotten its scalps — John Edwards has fired the two controversial bloggers he recently hired to do liberal blogger outreach, Salon has learned.
The bloggers, Amanda Marcotte, formerly of Pandagon, and Melissa McEwan, of Shakespeare\’s Sister, had come under fire from right-wing bloggers for statements they had previously made on their respective blogs. A statement by the Catholic League\’s Bill Donohue, which called Marcotte and McEwan \”anti-Catholic vulgar trash-talking bigots,\” and an accompanying article on the controversy in the New York Times this morning, put extra pressure on the campaign.
Speculation from sources that the two bloggers might be rehired was bolstered by Jennifer Palmieri, a spokeswoman for the Edwards campaign, who said in an e-mail that she would \”caution [Salon] against reporting that they have been fired. We will have something to say later.\” …
Comments are closed.