We Are All Melissa and Amanda
I could see it coming, as surely as I could see the criticism coming when Amanda and Melissa were hired by John Edwards’ campaign. Yesterday, Amanda called it quits. That left Melissa as a lone target for all of the venom being spewed by the fringe christofascist wing of the GOP. And [...]
I could see it coming, as surely as I could see the criticism coming when Amanda and Melissa were hired by John Edwards’ campaign. Yesterday, Amanda called it quits. That left Melissa as a lone target for all of the venom being spewed by the fringe christofascist wing of the GOP. And guess what? Shake’s Sis had enough of it and quit today.
I can not imagine for one moment the pain and harassment that these two very strong women have been experiencing over the past week. They took a love for what they were doing on line, and parlayed it into a sweet gig with a presidential campaign that they believed in. Then, just as quickly as Edwards’ star was rising, a right wing religious extremist hijacked Edwards’ campaign and derailed the narrative.
Am I mad? Yes. But I’m more sad that once again, in a supposedly enlightened society, on an allegedly progressive political campaign, a small group of zealots could put two fellow human beings and their families through so much grief. While neither Amanda or Melissa have directly said they received death threats or other intimidating anonymous communications, I think we can safely assume that Donohue’s flying monkeys made their lives amazingly painful over the past week.
The Edwards campaign did the right thing (at least publicly), and stood behind both of these fine women at the height of the shitstorm. For that, the campaign is to be applauded. In the course of the next 12 months, this incident will be forgotten, and the campaign will be able to get back to dealing with tangible issues - that is, until the next Rovian swiftboat tactic rears its ugly head.
Note I didn’t say “in the event of another Rovian attack…” in the above paragraph. My message to the Edwards campaign is that, indeed, another such incident will most certainly surface before it’s all over. And you’d better have a quicker and more cogent response the next time. I realize that it’s early, and maybe it’s a good thing that this flap came and went now, rather than in December or even next January.
There are lessons to be learned here. One online discussion group in which I participate suggested that it is extremely important for the DNC to wargame these kind of attacks right now. We know most of the principal players in the game, and there is plenty of time (and material) to develop “fast response” dossiers on the anticipated protagonists. In proposing a DNC taskforce to deal with these anticipated attacks, Jeffery Feldman at Frameshop writes:
Republican smear attacks against one Democratic candidate are attacks against all Democratic candidates. Unfortunately, the Democratic party does not yet treat them as such. Instead, we allow each candidate to defend themselves, on their own. This results in a constant derailing by Republicans of Democratic control of the national debate. As soon as a Democratic candidate begins to lead the debate, they are attacked by a Republican…
What is amazing in 2007 is that we’re still working with the same type of uncoordinated response that we were during Al Gore’s campaign in 1999 and 2000. In subsequent years, and with the emergence of the blogosphere, the problem has been magnified tenfold. It can’t happen again.
I want you to read (again) the first sentence that I quoted from Feldman. This concept needs to be the basis of our moving forward as a party, and as a country. With a lot of strong candidates on the Democratic Party side of the ledger, the GOP has to hit early and with feigned outrage over every perceived weakness of the campaigns of all declared Dem contenders. And the DNC needs to respond as a unified voice, not sit on the sidelines for fear of appearing to favor one candidate over another. The DNC could actually take itself out of the picture, and simply serve as a resource for the campaigns of each candidate.
The bottom line is that this kind of thing can’t stand. It’s not just Edwards. It’s not just Amanda and Melissa. Today, those of us in the progressive blogosphere are all Amanda and Melissa - and we need to remember that we are the sworn enemy of the plutocracy, profiteers, and polipundits (print and online). They would come for us all if they could. In the world of Malkin, Limbaugh, Reynolds, O’Reilly, and a host of other wingnuts, Amanda, Melissa, and their families are, much like the troops in Iraq, simply collateral damage in a broader holy war.
Republican smear attacks against one Democratic candidate are attacks against all Democratic candidates.
Remember that. I would add one thought to Feldman’s excellent recommendations - this can’t wait. There is too much at stake. We’ve got to stop letting the wingnuts dictate the narrative.
Update: Pandagon has been getting hammered with hits all day. The site has been up and down, but you really need to read Amanda’s post from today that explains a little bit of the wingnuttery that a compliant media has enabled. It’s sad, and the primary reason why I’m so pissed - these are the hounds of hell that Donohue loosed on them. Nice xtians, eh?
Additionally, Lane Hudson at HuffPo reports that both Amanda and Melissa have indeed received direct death threats as a result of Donohue’s latter day crusade / inquisition / witchhunt.
Jesus weeps.
I ca’t balme Melissa for resigning. In her shoes, I might have done the same.
But Amanda’s writings at Pandagon — as Ezra Klein put it, she “threw elbows, to say the least” — probably should have excluded her from being hired as a front-person for a presidential campaign. Maybe that’s fair, maybe it’s not — but that’s politics.
Donohue is a bad guy, no doubt, and bloggers on the right have said outlandish things as well. But the argument that “everybody does it” is one that I’ve never seen actually work. It might feel good to argue, but it’s certainly not exculpatory.
Of course, I meant “blame.”
WWB, I’m sure you understand that’s not the point. An argument could certainly be made that the Edwards campaign might have done a better job of research, and hashing out the pros & cons of hiring Amanda and Melissa. But let’s do something - let’s stipulate that the Edwards campaign did indeed understand the potential volatile nature of their blogging. If politics is a contact sport, political blogging is, at times, knives and handguns. If the Edwards campaign didn’t understand that - shame on them.
I don’t believe that John Edwards himself had anything to do with the hiring decision. But he has been sucked into the vortex, and for the most part he’s handled a bad situation in the most diplomatic possible way. For that I give him credit.
His campaign staff, though, has some serious issues, as does the blogging community on his site. Were I him, I’d be cleaning house right now.
If the death threats truly were “anonymous,” how could Donohue be blamed for them? Do the threats directly say somelthing like, “We want to kill you because Donohue will be pleased?” It’s the height of ridiculousness to make Donohue directly responsible, as if the ones who made the threats (and those people are excreable people) have no responsibility whatsoever for their actions. If you want to see true venom, read some comments over at Kos - the Left can find vile things to say just as well as the Right.
If the death threats truly were “anonymous,” how could Donohue be blamed for them?
Quite simply, there are a lot of fringe fundamentalist whackos out there - or perhaps more on point, misogynistic, ultranationalist asswipes that will follow any controversy dogging a left wing blogger, Matt. I am not saying that Donohue or anyone else is pulling the strings and directing these fruitcakes. What I’m saying is that by issuing his fatwa, Donohue opened a Pandora’s box of hatred from all corners of the fringe right wing. Basically, he painted a target on both Melissa and Amanda. Then, the snipers started firing away (rhetorically speaking, of course).
Until Donohue’s screed, both Pandagon and Shake’s Sis were (for lack of a better word) boutique progressive blogs, with a dedicated (but ultimately limited) following. I’d hazard a guess that most of the freepers weren’t even aware of the two blogs.
That’s why I blame Donohue and his attack methods, which were carefully designed to inflame passion, blowback, and a gutter response from the wingnuts who follow this type of thing.
If the death threats truly were “anonymous,” how could Donohue be blamed for them?
That is the worst kind of intellectual dishonesty. Yes, there are thousands of violent wingnut crackpots, but how many knew about Melissa or Amanda before Donohoe started directing his vitriol at them. Would ANY of them have bothered to even consider some random liberal blogger as a target until Edwards brought them on board and Donohoe put a target on them?
Donohoe doesn’t have to implicitly say, “Shoot so-and-so because they are God-haters”, he just has to say, “So-and-so is a God-hater”.
Matt Brown, that is total nonsense what you’re writing. By your logic, manson should be out of jail, because he didn’t actually TELL anyone to kill Sharon Tate etc: he just made it known that he wanted them dead.
And as Richard says, none of these people would have gone after Marcotte and McEwan if Donohue hadn’t rasied a stink.
I’m really pissed at the Edwards campaign about the whole situation: this is a guy who promised that after 2004, he learned to hit back and hit hard. His failure to do so (why didn’t anyone on the Edwards campaign send Donohue’s anti-semitic and not-ready-for-prime-time quotes to the media? Why was Donohue allowed to set the rules of engagement?) makes it more difficult for the rest of the candidates.
I am not sold on Obama, but his response to Australian Prime minister Howard;s “Al qaeda” line was perfect: “My country’s got 140,000 troops in Iraq, while Howard’s commited 1400. Send another 20,000 then we can talk.” We need more tart-tongued democratic responses like that when the shit-flingers show up.
It’s evidence of the fear among the fascist right that all the progressive blogs in the past week have been increasingly plagued by trolls and other christofascist shit-for-brains. Not content any longer with the right wing circle jerk at LGF or Malkins and the like, they have chosen to interrupt the dialogue at progressive sites. From concern trolls at ASZ to the rabid Eichmannites at Pandagon, it’s like someone turned over a rock.