Edwards holds his fire - supports Marcotte & McEwan
I have a lot to say about this but it's been a really long day so I'm just going to do a short post. In a somewhat tepid statement John Edwards stood by his bloggers. Amanda and Shakes will keep their jobs. There was some ambiguous language I had some problems with, but I'll take it and applaud him. Given the political realities, he had to tread a fine line. The lesson of 06, as embodied in the LaMont-Lieberman race, was the netroots aren't yet strong enough to carry a candidate on their own and he has to take care not to alienate anyone. I think he did well in an awkward situation and he's earned my strong support in this decision and my interest in his campaign.
Edwards did a lot more than just stand by a couple of bloggers today. I only had time to read maybe a half dozen posts in all the buzz but as Steve Gilliard pointed in the comments of somebody's blog, this was about Malkin's horde of hatemongers trying to prevent the leftroots from playing any part in the campaigns. Good for Edwards for standing up against their empty threat.
Edwards did a lot more than just stand by a couple of bloggers today. I only had time to read maybe a half dozen posts in all the buzz but as Steve Gilliard pointed in the comments of somebody's blog, this was about Malkin's horde of hatemongers trying to prevent the leftroots from playing any part in the campaigns. Good for Edwards for standing up against their empty threat.
posted by Libby Spencer at 10:00 PM
5 Comments:
You know, I actually agree that Edwards did the right thing keeping the two of them, and I'm sorry that it came down to Bill Donohue, who's a humorless putz and grievance-monger, but Amanda still ought to preemptively renounce the craziness that she's posted about the Duke "rape" case.
The idea, though, that they didn't mean to insult anyone with their "satirical" jibes at Christians . . . nobody who's read what they actually wrote can believe that. And I look forward to more fun.
What this does as a matter of fact is alert anyone who's got a similar strategy of ramping up with the netroots before moving to the center, that it's a dicey idea. And Edwards is making a very high-risk gamble that he can harness that early kick. What nobody seems to recall is that Donohue, for all his narrow-mindedness, posited that Edwards was a decent man who'd made a mistake. Donohue's mistake was in trying to bully Edwards, rather than to reason with him. And that's why I'm glad that Edwards didn't back down.
I don't believe that Edwards knew what kind of stuff the two of them wrote, and I don't think that he could have afforded to alienate the netrooters, because he wagers, correctly, that the Catholics are more forgiving than they. I wonder, though, what the situation of the staffer who recommended Marcotte and McEwan is.
Donohue is a nutcake and a bigot and no one should give a flying leap about what he says. He's just another crazy fundie in Catholic clothing and I don't understand how he collected such a large flock.
As to any lessons, it remains to be seen whether the lesson is for Edwards or for the rightwing smear swarm. On a tactical level, you lost this battle. The lesson might well be that the swarm no longer drives the debate.
And it's certainly a positive in the short run for Edwards. Yeah, you made for an ackward moment but he got a lot of attention for free and I wasn't at all interested in his campaign until you kids decided you wanted to screw it up. I'm sure I'm not the only one that ended up checking out his website.
Smear swarm? Since when is it smearing to quote someone verbatim, word for hateful word? As for me, I didn't cast aspersions on Edwards, because I figured that he wasn't personally responsible for the hire.
And as far as Donohue's large flock, The Catholic League has 350,000 members. It's a drop in the bucket, Catholic-wise.
Come on Dan. PW is not exactly the home of civilized speech. I've read worse than Pandagon over there. And don't even get me started on Malkin and Coulter. Find me one quote where a major Leftopian has called for the poisoning of a SCOTUS justice or the leveling a press building. And I might remind you that Donohue represents your side of the fence. Can you honestly deny his speech is hateful?
He was exactly the sort of Catholic that Amanda was talking about in these posts that so offend you. Are you defending him because he speaks for you?
Post a Comment
<< Home