The Edwards’ Blogger Firestorm
by Pamela LeaveyA few days ago the Edwards campaign announced they had hired liberal bloggers Amanda Marcotte (Pandagon) and Melissa McEwan (Shakespeare’s Sister). No sooner did the news break, when wingnut bloggers started a firestorm over opinions expressed on their blogs. In particular, Marcotte’s Pandagon blog. Now the firestorm has hit the mainstream media with the news that “the Catholic League, a conservative religious group, is demanding that Mr. Edwards dismiss the two.”
Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, said in a statement on Tuesday, “John Edwards is a decent man who has had his campaign tarnished by two anti-Catholic vulgar trash-talking bigots.”
Mr. Edwards’s spokeswoman, Jennifer Palmieri, said Tuesday night that the campaign was weighing the fate of the two bloggers.
Well Donohue, it’s pointed out on many blogs and Media Matters, is no saint himself, when it comes to bigoted language. The MSM fails to note that Media Matters points out:
Nor did the Times or the AP report that Donohue has his own history of comments that could easily be described as “vulgar” and “trash-talking” examples of bigotry, which Media Matters form America has repeatedly documented:
“People don’t trust the Muslims when it comes to liberty.” [MSNBC's Scarborough Country, 2/9/06] “Name for me a book publishing company in this country, particularly in New York, which would allow you to publish a book which would tell the truth about the gay death style.” [MSNBC's Scarborough Country, 2/27/04] “The gay community has yet to apologize to straight people for all the damage that they have done.” [MSNBC's Scarborough Country, 4/11/05] Addressing former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) in a press release, Donohue said: “[W]hy didn’t you just smack the clergyman in the face? After all, most 15-year-old teenage boys wouldn’t allow themselves to be molested. So why did you?” [10/4/06] “I’m saying if a Catholic votes for Kerry because they support him on abortion rights, that is to cooperate in evil.” [MSNBC's Hardball, 10/21/04]
All controversy aside, I’m going to add my 2 cents here as a blogger who wrote for the Kerry campaign blog from August ‘03 through the 2004 election cycle. It’s common sense that any blogger representing a presidential campaign on the campaign website needs to be cognizant of the tone and language they use on the candidate’s blog. From what I can see on the Edwards blog, Marcotte is very aware of that, and whatever she (or McEwan for that matter) have written in the past is really quite irrelevant as Steve Benen points out on The Carpetbagger Report:
Edwards’ campaign should stand by Amanda and Melissa. The campaign should tell reporters that everything Edwards has said or written is fair game, but what individual staffers wrote long before they joined the campaign team is irrelevant.
There are a lot of bloggers who write some very controversial stuff and often the more controversial, the higher the traffic for these blogs. The wingnuts who decry Marcotte and McEwan are also no saints when it comes to spewing profanity and invectives around the blogosphere or for that matter cooking up false stories and controversies and then perpetuating them ad nauseam. Glenn Greenwald takes a look at “John McCain’s blogger-consultant” and notes he’s no saint either.
For any blogger who has aspired to blog for a political campaign, particularly a presidential campaign, which is the pinnacle of campaign blogging, it’s common sense to temper and tone your opinion in the blogosphere. I know, I’ve been there. My time as the only grassroots blogger on the Kerry campaign, set the tone for my blogging here.
Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan have an exciting opportunity to represent a candidate they believe in and get paid for their efforts. It’s an opportunity they probably never dreamed would happen. I have no doubt they will do a great job for John Edwards. It’s a crying shame the hatred from the wingnuts is tarnishing this opportunity before they even have a chance to do their jobs.
UPDATE: Memeorandum has all the buzz on Edwards’ blogger controversy and it’s appears the firestorm may have taken a new twist with Salon reporting (unconfirmed at this point), that Marcotte and McEwan have been fired: Edwards campaign fires bloggers.
UPDATE 2: Still no word from the Edwards campaign but Chris Bowers is fired up on MYDD ready to let loose if Salon is correct.
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Very well-written, Pamela.
Thanks Cali Dem
It is a great post, Pamela. I piggy-backed on your comments over at AoF, but the whole “story” is really an outrage. Hasn’t the MSM learned anything since ‘04? Bill Donohue was the same doofus running around saying Kerry “wasn’t Catholic enough” or “isn’t the right kind of Catholic” during the election and threw his support Bush’s way. As someone who is Catholic, I’ve always found him and his organization offensive.
Edwards should do the right thing and tell Bill Donohue to have a coke and a smile and STFU! If they let them go because of that, this campaign with get down and dirty like never before. Not only will the candidates be on the hot seat, but bloggers will be too. Like they are in the race.
Hell, those catholic loons went to NOLA to protest a parade! Some came from out of state! Get outta my back yard you creeps! Lets make a deal. When you come out and give transparency on how many priests have been covered for after having indescretions with kids, I will cut you some slack. Deal? Hand over the names and give full accounting of them and anyone that covered for them. Then we can talk about what a blogger might have said.
This is how the Catholic Church operates. It has always used as much violence as it could get away with. Unlike his predecessors, Bill Donohue cannot send Edwards, Marcotte and McEwan to the torture chambers of the inquisition.
In Double Cross: The Code of the Catholic Church, David Ranan reveals the modus operandi of the Catholic Church and concludes that the Church be dismantled – to save us all, Catholics included!
Susan writes: “This is how the Catholic Church operates.”
It’s not the church that is behind this. Bill Donohue represents an organization called the Catholic League, which is not affiliated with the church. He’s also a bigot and an accused anti-semite who has no standing amongst anyone Catholic I know.
Yikes!
Seems like we’re getting a little off course here. Remember, Kerry is also a Catholic, only he’s not a conservative one. It’s the fundamentalist conservatives in both religions and politics that are the problem now because of their black and white view of the world, and their unreasonable position that only they have the right brand of…. I left organized religion behind when I was twenty, yet feel no reason to badmouth those who still adhere to their beliefs, as long as they do not foist them on me or the public at large, as the right-wing, conservative branch of almost every religion in the world is now trying to do. It’s fear of change that’s making conservatives dig in now while the dark side of all religions, and all political parties, comes to the surface. Let’s just clean house across the board and leave the venom out, okay?
And what did one of those women say which caused all this ruckus? That the Catholic Church’s opposition to birth control forces women to bear more tithing Catholics? Think hard. That’s not an opinion. That’s a FACT. Now if she had said that the Catholic Church’s policy on birth control forces women to bear more tempting little altar boys who might grow up to become priests – now that would have been more incendiary. But there’s truth in that statement, too! The average American Catholic – like me – has finally figured it out. And the conservative Catholics are mighty annoyed about it.
Marcotte Resigns from Edwards’ Campaign
Days after the controversy appeared to be put to rest over the Edwards campaign hiring Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon as blogmaster for their campaign blog, Marcotte resigned yesterday citing further harrassment from “right wing shill Bill Donohue,…