Blogswarm Request: Fire Up an Email to John Edwards’ Campaign
I could see this one coming from a mile away. When Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon and Melissa McEwan of Shake’s Sister and Big Brass Blog were hired by the John Edwards campaign for netroots outreach, it was only a matter of time before the right wing howler monkeys started pushing a story to a [...]
I could see this one coming from a mile away. When Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon and Melissa McEwan of Shake’s Sister and Big Brass Blog were hired by the John Edwards campaign for netroots outreach, it was only a matter of time before the right wing howler monkeys started pushing a story to a compliant media. Well, the story hit today:
WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 — Two bloggers hired by John Edwards to reach out to liberals in the online world have landed his presidential campaign in hot water for doing what bloggers do — expressing their opinions in provocative and often crude language.
The Catholic League, a conservative religious group, is demanding that Mr. Edwards dismiss the two, Amanda Marcotte of the Pandagon blog site and Melissa McEwan, who writes on her blog, Shakespeare’s Sister, for expressing anti-Catholic opinions.
…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.”
This would be kinda funny if it wasn’t so outrageous. The Catholic League is one of the most right wing Catholic organizations going. Not in one million years would any of its members or supporters vote for John Edwards. Bill Donohue is pulling a preemptive swiftboating of the Edwards campaign - and no doubt, it won’t be the last time that Edwards gets swiftboated in the next few years. This is just the first shot across the bow against a leading Democratic Party candidate.
Let’s take a brief look at the Catholic League. From Media Matters:
The Catholic League professes to be “the nation’s largest Catholic civil rights organization” that “defends the right of Catholics — lay and clergy alike — to participate in American public life without defamation or discrimination.” Its board of advisers includes conservatives such as L. Brent Bozell III, Linda Chavez, Dinesh D’Souza, Alan Keyes, and Kate O’Beirne.
Oh, and Donohue’s own bigotry? How’s about the Hollywood Jews. Don’t get me started.
Do you need to know anything else?
I’ve been following both Pandagon and Shakespeare’s Sister for as long as I’ve been blogging, and both sites appear prominently in ASZ’s blogroll. I’ve corresponded with Amanda and Melissa on multiple occasions, and hooked ASZ into Melissa’s prior online organizing efforts.
Amanda and Melissa’s faux pax? Oh, my gawd, they curse online on their own blogs, and poke some fun at (as well as deconstruct stupidity) of the christofascist fringe right fundamentalists that would never vote for John Edwards in a million years. And now, the Edwards campagin has its first manufactured controversy of the 2008 presidential election cycle.
Let’s be clear on something - Amanda and Melissa are among the most savvy, articulate progressive commentators in the blogosphere. The Edwards’ campaign is most fortunate to have both of them working on internet outreach. So, to me, this is just another example of right wing blogs pushing a story into the mainstream media to create some noise based on out-of-context cherry picking of inflammatory buzzwords and snarky posting. But afterall, isn’t that what this medium is all about?
Ok, so, I’m going to ask you to do something. If you feel as I do, that this is a trumped up manufactured controversy by organizations that wouldn’t vote for Edwards in a million years anyway, please drop a line to the Edwards campaign.
We need to support our own in this regard. If the Edwards campaign buckles on this one, and fires Amanda and Melissa, I will immediately drop my own support for John Edwards. It’s not that I will have changed my views on his issues, but that his campaign will have shown no spine early on. And I want a candidate (and campaign) with spine.
This has to be done today. If you’re going to drop the campaign an email, please do it now.
Thanks!!
Update: I can’t say it any better than Melissa herself:
I’m not going to say a lot about this right now, but suffice it to say that the fact I cast a vote, without hesitation, for a Catholic during the last presidential election might suggest I’m not anti-Catholic.
My degree from Loyola University might also suggest the same…
Updated update: Salon is reporting that Amanda and Melissa have been fired from the Edwards campaign. No word yet from the campaign itself.
Done, letter written. Thanks, Richard.
“So, to me, this is just another example of right wing blogs pushing a story into the mainstream media to create some noise based on out-of-context cherry picking of inflammatory buzzwords and snarky posting. But afterall, isn’t that what this medium is all about?”
Begs the question “why the long post then”.
The other thing this medium is about is taking issue with bloggers and exposing opinions and statements they have made previously from thier archives.
If these two bloggers honestly thought satire about niggers and kykes wouldn’t disqualify them from holding a more reputable writing position then they are too stupid to hold it anyway. Either way they’re going to get fired for hateful language they chose to use in describing others, none of it necessary.
Not sure why you would want Edwards to carry this completely unnecessary baggage throughout an entire campaign but you’ll probably get a lot more support if you float that campaign on some right-wing blogs where a lot more people would find this result desirable.
Yep. Well done.
This is a hot topic. See my comments at DailyKos. Also, check out the discussion at the Edwards Blog and on Coturnix’s summary.
If Edwards capitulates to this bullying, and if the Dems capitalize on it, they are going to lose credibility. People have had enough of the bullying and hypocrisy on the right.
Kilo, when you speak of Michelle Malkin and Dinesh D’Souza in the same way, we’ll listen to you. Seriously,
One of the big unwritten commandments of working on a political campaign is “Don’t become the story”. The more the press spends its time reporting on John Edwards’ bloggers rather than Edwards himself, the more than campaign is forced off-message and into defensive rather that offensive mode. I would like to think that the Edwards campaign was aware of this possibility when they hired Amanda and that they were willing to take the heat, although it is also possible they just didn’t realize how much negative emotion Amanda would stir up.
Edwards needs to get past this as quickly as possible, but unfortunately both of his choices right now are bad ones. Dumping Amanda = caving to the wingnuts. Standing up for Amanda = giving the wingnuts lots of anti-Edwards campaign fodder. I am glad I don’t have to make that call. But then, I wouldn’t have hired her for that job in the first place.
The Machiavellian part of me wonders if the Edwards campaign realized they might not be able to keep both women, and thus hired Melissa knowing that she might need to step in and fill Amanda’s job as well as the one she was hired for.
The whole sorry escapade shows the Edwards’ machine to be clueless. My letter -
“Fire two of the most articulate and passionate voices on the net and you slit your own political throats.
Let me clue you all in on something - blogging and the internet is more powerful than anyone realize now and another thing - opposition to this creeping fascism in America is far more widespread than is realized in society and especially among internet users. Firing those two women from this campaign means you’re spineless cowards who turn to jello when a few brownshirts screech at you. If that’s the case, (oh my god he’s going to swear!) go fuck yourselves.”
Kilo, when you speak of Michelle Malkin and Dinesh D’Souza in the same way, we’ll listen to you. Seriously,
Comment by SpinDentist — February 7, 2007 @ 1:42 pm
Whereas we’ll just not take you seriously right from the get go.
I think what you just tried to say was that after D’souza’s WaPo editorial something would change in terms of how much damage was done to the credibility of the WaPo by publishing that once I comment on it.
Likewise, something is going to change in terms of Fox news and Townhall’s credibility once I comment on Malkin ?
Wow. Who knew it worked like that.