I find myself increasingly angered and saddened by the growing controversy over Amanda Marcotte’s hiring to head the John Edwards 2008 campaign blog. (I mentioned her hiring last week.)
Amanda is a bold, outspoken writer who has established herself as one of the most influential and important bloggers in the entire feminist blogosphere. She has supported and nurtured dozens of other aspiring bloggers, and her blogging (first at the now-defunct Mousewords and then at Pandagon) has been prolific, inspiring, powerful, and frequently blunt.
Now, some are attacking Edwards for his bold decision to hire Amanda, citing in particular her writing about the Duke lacrosse rape case. One particular critic of the Marcotte hire is KC Johnson, whose Durham-in-Wonderland blog has provided regular commentary on the case (from a perspective hostile to the prosecution) since last year. KC is one of my fellow Cliopatriarchs; a historian at CUNY, he and I are both long-time bloggers for the History News Network. I don’t share all of his views, but I’ve appreciated his writing and we’ve commented on each other’s posts from time to time.
Last Friday, KC wrote about Amanda’s hiring by the Edwards campaign. Quoting extensively from various Pandagon posts about the rape case, KC suggests that Amanda’s bias against the lacrosse players and in favor of the alleged victim ought to lead Edwards to ask for her resignation. This weekend, the lamentable Michelle Malkin picked up the story. Beltway Blogroll is all over it now, and the unpleasantness continues from Dean Barnett here.
One problem is not only has Amanda used profane language in her posts, her critics claim that she sought to delete some of the offensive language from those posts after she was hired by the Edwards campaign. They accuse her of “covering up”. That seems an absurd charge to me! Blogging is, for most of us, stream-of-consciousness. We all retain the right to rethink our positions, clean up our language, and alter our past writings if we choose. The fact that we blog doesn’t mean that the rest of the world is entitled to access an unredacted cyber-trail of our thoughts! Of course, it isn’t at all clear that Amanda DID try and disguise her prior postings. (See Auguste at Pandagon here, and Jill at Feministe here , Jessica at Feministing here for more).
Amanda has been a regular commenter on this blog and on its Typepad predecessor. She’s been an insightful, kind presence here. She falls among those small number of bloggers whom I have never met in person, but whom I regard as both friend and colleague. When she and I first “met” on line, it was after my own intemperate post about the famous Amy Richards case back in July 2004.
Here was my original post: Crying with Rage at Amy Richards. Amanda’s response was both harsh and eloquent. It was also pretty damn funny, as most of her writing is. Among other things, she said of me: I want to kick him; I asked her nicely in the comments to reconsider that, and we ended up forming a blogging friendship that has lasted ever since. We don’t always agree, and we choose different styles even when we do share the same stance — but I have nothing but colossal respect for her and her tremendous contributions to the feminist blogosphere.
The attacks on Amanda are savage this week; predictably, in some places, they devolve into nasty misogyny, replete with hateful remarks about her appearance and her personal life. (And please know that comments in that vein will be deleted here.) But for what it’s worth, I want to throw my support wholeheartedly behind Amanda. What Edwards decides to do in the face of this minor tempest of criticism will say a lot about his campaign; if he does the right thing, and makes it clear to Amanda that she enjoys his full support and that she ought to stay, then he will have demonstrated laudable courage and good sense. If he caves, then the disappointment and frustration will ripple throughout the feminist blogosphere — and beyond.
Hang in there, Amanda. You are very much in my prayers today, my good cyber friend.
I thought that’s Edwards’ hiring of Amanda showed poor judgment as political strategy. She is so outspokenly anti-Christian (e.g. calling Focus on the Family “Focus on the Anus”, arguing that the Catholic pro-life position is “Objectively Pro-Rape”, etc), and the blog even more so. From a strategic standpoint, it doesn’t make sense to me.
Actually, I think Focus on the Anus is a turn of phrase used by one of Amanda’s co-bloggers, Pam Spaulding.
You said
Of course, it isn’t at all clear that Amanda DID try and disguise her prior postings.
It’s absultely clear she deleted the Duke thread. She say’s she deleted it in the comment that replaced the first post and again in the comment thread you linked by August. She also deleted all of the comments she disagreed with.
The problem I have with Amanda is the same problem on the “class-theory” left or on the “Theo-Con” right. She can only see things through her lens or theory.
If a Theo-Con blogger started writing that it was good that an abortion doctor was murdered, and that God ordained it and the Bible says so on page so-and-so, I would say that the facts are that someone was murdered. And you can’t go around doing that. And the murderer should be subject to the laws.
Similarly, Amanda is just as blind on many issues. She doesn’t give a flying fig about the facts - most recently in the Duke case. The facts and common sense don’t interest her in the least.
She’s simply trying to pound the square peg of the world into the round hole of her theory - and a few edges are going to get chopped off.
I just don’t know what to think about people on the right or left who are blinded by their ideologies.
You reap what you sow.
I agree with Hugo that all bloggers retain the right to modify, or clean up, their posts. But it is rather unseemly when a post is deleted only because it has attracted political criticism, as appears to be the case here.
As a Liestoppers thread pointed out, Marcotte went well beyond deleting her post–in another post on the case–where she invited critics of Nifong to explain why they gbelieves O.J. Simpson was innocent, a bizarre argument–she deleted comments critical of Nifong, while leaving in place comments (many of which were factually dubious) that were favorable toward the accuser.
Marcotte’s the blogger–she has the power to delete comments. But it seems to me fair game to wonder whether someone who engages in such behavior is suitable to be chief blogger for a presidential candidate. If a candidate is going to argue that the position of chief blogger is important, then that blogger’s behavior–and troubling arguments–become fair game.
The issue for me in this case isn’t really Marcotte’s deletion of posts that now look embarrassing. It’s what this affair says about Edwards. This has been the highest-profile case of prosecutorial misconduct in recent memory. It happened in Edwards’ backyard. Edwards is a lawyer, whose claim to fame was representing those who stood up to figures in power. But in this case, he said nothing. I wonder why?
Now, he has hired as his chief blogger someone who quite clearly believes that some form of sexual contact occurred–even though overwhelming evidence suggests otherwise. Obviously, he didn’t read Marcotte’s blog postings before the hiring. But someone fairly high in his campaign did (or else his campaign is incompetently run, which would be a problem in and of itself). What does it say about Edwards’ mindset that his campaign staff could have seen no problem in the very troubling views Marcotte expressed on the case, given Edwards’ peculiar silence on it?
samChevre,
So you believe that being critical of Focus on the Family means that one is anti-Christian?
This has been the highest-profile case of prosecutorial misconduct in recent memory.
The use of the passive voice here is instructive. You have, of course, been a small part creating this high profile yourself–small potatoes compared to the hours a day Fox News spent on it, but a part of the story nevertheless. Why do you think this is? Why, do you suppose, this was all over the news for months, but if it weren’t for Bob Herbert, I might have never heard of Tulia? Of Genarlow Wilson is of marginal interest on a few blogs? Does it seem possible to you that many of the people obsessed with this case are focusing on it precisely because it reverses the all too common racial dynamic of so many other cases of prosecutorial misconduct? Or because it offers an opportunity for those who are always on the lookout for excuses to complain about feminists and/or liberal academics? Anyone with a passing familiarity with our legal system and our tragic “war on drugs” knows that prosecutorial misconduct is all too common, and many victims of it are, in fact, currently rotting in prison. Why, compared to, say, Tulia, Wilson, Cory Maye, or any number of others, does this deserve to become an issue of overwhelming importance, that create litmus tests for low level hires on presidential campaigns.
Obviously, he didn’t read Marcotte’s blog postings before the hiring.
Perhaps he just doesn’t share your obsessions.
And furthermore, have you given any thought to what campaigns might look like if you actually universalized the principle you seem to be using? That anyone who has prematurely and publicly assumed that the evidence against high profile criminal defendants was, in fact, sound, when it actually wasn’t ought to be banned from the political campaigns and staffs of serious and respectable politicans? If you’d like to suggest that as a universal norm, by all means do so, but you probably ought to acknowledge the novelty and eccentricity of the idea.
First, I’m sorry. I was wrong on the facts. It looks like evil_fizz is correct, and the “Focus on the Anus” mockery is not Amanda, but a co-blogger. Sundown’s question is still a reasonable one. I don’t intend to propose that one must agree 100% with Focus on the Family to be friendly to Christianity. However, I would argue that frequently and publicly mocking them for a position they share with a super-super-majority of Christians, both present and past, is probably anti-Christian.
And djw, I think you are missing the aspect of Amanda’s conduct wrt the Duke case that is actually troubling. It’s not getting it wrong when it first broke that’s a problem; it’s continuing to defend Nifong now, when it has become quite clear that his conduct was wildly outside the bounds of acceptable prosecutorial conduct. (On a side note, every blogger I read was on the same side in both the Cory Maye case and the Duke case.)
I’m just glad I was always of the opinion that the Duke lacrosse players ought be ashamed and punished for drinking and highering strippers for their party, whatever the truth of the (now obviously false) rape charges. But then, I was also of the opinion that President Clinton ought to have resigned for being an adulterer, not because of his rather small lies.
DJW, if you think “This has been the highest-profile case of prosecutorial misconduct in recent memory” is in the passive voice, your response is instructive indeed. Not only does it demonstrate an appalling poor command of English grammar on your part, it also shows you have missed the point completely. When evaluating John Edwards’s questionable judgment in remaining silent throughout this fiasco, coupled with his horrible judgment in hiring a bomb thrower like Marcotte, it doesn’t matter how the case got its high profile, only that it did. If the case had received a small fraction of the coverage it did, occurred in a state other than Edwards’s own, etc. etc., then Edwards could at least plead ignorance. As it stands, he can’t even do that, unless he wants voters to think he’s the worst-informed person in North Carolina.
Your suggestion that Marcotte merely “prematurely and publicly assumed that the evidence against high profile criminal defendants was, in fact, sound, when it actually wasn’t” doesn’t pass the laugh test. The offending post ran two weeks ago. Everything that is widely known about this case today was widely known then; Marcotte simply didn’t care.
RAF, does your “let the punishment fit the non-crime” mentality extend to Reade Seligman, whose sins amount to attending a party, finding underage drinking, learning that his teammates have hired a stripper, and leaving?
Edwards is a lawyer, whose claim to fame was representing those who stood up to figures in power. But in this case, he said nothing. I wonder why?
Because he wasn’t sure whether the Duke lacrosse players were guilty or not, and believed he didn’t need to inquire, because the court system would be capable of sorting it out? As it appears in fact to have been sorted out without his assistance?
Should I insist that every presidential candidate have spoken out on the Haidl case, after that first hung jury? Or just whichever one happens to be geographically closest to me?
I find it odd that you, Hugo, are defending Amanda in such glowing terms. You are opinionated, to be sure, but you seem like a very civil person who usually goes the extra mile to be understanding and respectful towards the beliefs of other people.
Amanda is the polar opposite of that, at least as a blogger. Her whole stock-in-trade is writing intentionally disrespectful stuff like this:
http://pandagon.net/2006/06/14/pandagon-goes-undercover-the-lazy-way-on-a-catholic-anti-contraception-seminar-pt-ii
Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit?
A: You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology.
Maybe, despite your tolerant and open-minded blog, you have a secret liking for this sort of thing. Regardless, can you see why it might not be the wisest thing for a Presidential candidate to hire a chief blogger whose blog is known only for poking a stick in people’s eyes as often as possible?
KC, would you rather that John Edwards higher a “neutral”, but clearly obsessive, man like yourself to represent him? Talk about a single issue party ticket.
You do know that there is life outside of the rape case, no?
What rape case? The one that was so frivolous even Mike Nifong dismissed it?
Folks, let’s try and keep this on the topic of Marcotte-Edwards, and not rehash the Duke thing.
John, a certain level of civility and bonhomie is part of my overall blogging style. For other bloggers, invective and passionate polemic are part of who they are; I don’t assume my style is the “right” way to do things. Any broad social movement needs a variety of voices, some adversarial, some irenic.
We feminists, like Christians, are one body with many parts. How can the eye say to the hand, I have no need of you? How can Hugo Schwyzer say to Amanda Marcotte, I have no need of you?
Well, it wouldn’t be quite that. You can “need” or collaborate with or commiserate with Amanda Marcotte all you want, but are you really saying that you never have any responsibility to ask your fellow feminists to cool it down just a bit? You’re obviously cribbing from the New Testament — do you think that Christians should never tell the “God hates fags” guy to tone it down and stop going out of his way to insult other people? They should just say, “Fred Phelps is a Christian, and I cannot say that I have no need of Fred Phelps”?!?
John, Amanda writes satire — not hate. The difference between what Phelps says and what Amanda says is enormous.
If Amanda showed up at the funerals of dead American soldiers saying that they deserved to rot in hell, I’d rebuke her zealously.
“The fact that we blog doesn’t mean that the rest of the world is entitled to access an unredacted cyber-trail of our thoughts! ”
Hate to break it to you, Hugo, but whether we are “entitled” doesn’t make a jot of difference. Fact is, that unredacted cyber-trail is out there:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.pandagon.net/
I was actually a bit surprised by Edwards hiring Marcotte, for two reasons. First, her blog isn’t anywhere close to being “professional” in the political sense; there seems to be little restraint in her prior ventures into the public forum. This is certainly her right, but she makes for an odd choice for Edwards when one considers how important retaining an image is to a political campaign. I also wonder about her ability to project that kind of image for Edwards instead of falling back into her standby sarcasm and mocking. One of her main styles of blogging seems to be to find interesting ways to say “Fuck off” to those she disagrees with. Such a strategy works, I suppose, for the stridently ideological (e.g., “I met Harold Ford at the Playboy party.” (not that I’m equating her with the Corker campaign in substance; I think she tends to be right more than wrong, but her tactics smack of ideologically motivated rigidity (alas, the liberal academic world that I (and you) inhabit is full of such “freethinkers” who are stridently opposed to even listening to views that sound like they may disagree with their own enlightened positions) rather than a contemplative willingness to consider other points-of-view (something I’ve always liked about this blog))), but I would have hoped that Edwards wouldn’t be stooping to that kind of attack. If he does, I won’t be voting for him (not that it matters: Illinois won’t vote other than Democratic in 2008). I’m all for making people mad at you in a political campaign, but make it be for issues (like raising taxes on those making over 200k) instead of tactics. I’m not convinced that Marcotte is the right person to be able to pull this off, and quite frankly, she can probably do more good if she continues what she’s doing in an unofficial capacity.
Second, I’ve never really understood why people enjoy her reading so much, even people whom I respect, like you, Hugo. I’ve tried getting into her and never really found anything that I thought particular exceptional, valuable, interesting, or worth my time. Your recommending her reminds me of Grant Wahl, a college basketball commentator over at SI.com. I very much enjoy his intelligent writing, and he speaks in very glowing terms about how Jay Bilas is perhaps the smartest guy in the college-basketball commentary world, and I can’t figure it out b/c I have only rarely found anything Jay Bilas said to be either smart or worthwhile.
XLRQ, the view that major national politicians need to take a view (let alone make an issue in their low level hires) on controversial local criminal cases just because they’ve become CNN and Fox News obsessions of the month is an eccentric one, to put it mildly. Personally, I care about as much as Edwards’ view on Nifong as I do on his view of the conduct of Aruba’s investigation into the dissapearance of what’s-her-name. Edwards has, since early in his 2004 campaign, consistently had the most thorough and detailed policy positions and statement on major issues of any serious Democratic presidential candidate. If this means he has less time to keep tabs on the antics of the latest rogue DA, that’s a trade-off I’m willing to make.
Put another way: is it very likely that Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert could be hired to work for a presidential campaign? Of course not, because their biting satire would be a political hindrance if it were tied directly to a campaign, even though I’m sure that the major democratic players are (mostly) glad that Stewart and Colbert are out there doing what they’re doing. While I certainly don’t think Marcotte’s satire rises anywhere near the level of either of them (sorry, I apparently just don’t get it), I would have thought that the same wariness of hiring her for a political campaign applies.
Hey folks, Edwards has backbone. He’s willing to hire a satirist. That, in my view, speaks well of him.
Also, he seems unmoved at the unhinged whinging of the wingnuts. I predict that they will be unable to prevent their nemesis, Amanda, from converting her award-winning stylings into gainful and high-profile employment. May it stick in their collective craw forever.
I was an Edwards supporter already, but if I were not, hiring Amanda would have gotten him not only my vote but my check.
OK, Hugo, that particular line was satire, but you surely know that “Indecisive” (whose post sets a record for embedded parentheticals, by the way) is right in saying that Marcotte’s entire blogging style is to find creative ways to say “fuck off.” Granted, that’s not as extreme as picketing someone’s funeral, but she does manage to come up with some stuff that any Christian (no matter how left-wing) would find incredibly offensive. So why does that make her a good hire for Edwards? Would a Republican candidate be well-advised to hire a blogger whose main shtick was talking about how those motherfucking liberals are all traitors, etc.?
Um, I’m not an expert on contemporary American campaign strategy, so I can’t make the case as to why this decision made sense in that regard. I can say that I admire Amanda, I think she’s an excellent blogger, and her hiring increases my own admiration for Edwards, an admiration which may lead to my full-fledged support. But my views are not, alas, universally held.
Amanda Marcotte writes satire? Huh? OK, I’ll admit it: if she’s really a closet conservative and her whole schtick is satire at far-left feminists’ expense, then I’ll grant you that she writes damned good satire. Otherwise…
Yep, Amanda is strident. She is caustic. She finds the “Christians” of the right wing to be hypocritical and ignorant, and she calls them on it. I think her writing style is sharp, her arguments concise. (Who knew there were so many ways of telling self-proclaimed “Christian” moralists to fuck themselves?) She does not do the one thing that many on the right want her (and other women AND liberals to do) and that is be kind, soft spoken, and oh-so-concerned with the feelings of bigots, misogynists, and hypocrits. On her blog.
Let me repeat that. On HER blog.
When it is Senator Edwards’ blog, that will be a different story, I’m sure. I, for one, am hoping against hope that there will be at least one politician — or at least his website — who will not try to play nice with the Talibangelists and the warmongers that are currently shaping our discourse and our policies. Hiring Amanda is one great way to signal that very thing. If it comes true, Edwards might get my support — and money — as well.
“OK, Hugo, that particular line was satire, but you surely know that “Indecisive” (whose post sets a record for embedded parentheticals, by the way) is right in saying that Marcotte’s entire blogging style is to find creative ways to say “fuck off.” ”
To be more precise, it looks to me like her entire blogging style (from what I’ve read of it, anyway) is to place words of her own choosing in the mouths of those she disagrees with, and then find creative ways to say “fuck off” to the resulting strawman.
I don’t see satire in her writings. Sarcasm, hostility, contempt, yes, and all very seriously meant.
sat·ire /ˈsætaɪər/ –noun
1. the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc.
2. a literary composition, in verse or prose, in which human folly and vice are held up to scorn, derision, or ridicule.
3. a literary genre comprising such compositions.
I should add that the only people who seem to deny that what Amanda does is satire, are those who hold the views she skewers, lampoons, derides, scorns, and denounces as vice and folly. Either that, or Colbert has taken over the language and people now think that “satire” means exclusively pretending to hold the view that one in fact means to deride.
OK Thomas, but in that case a great deal of what is commonly deplored as right-wing “hate” needs to be renamed as “satire.”
If it’s just a matter of “deriding” view one perceives as evil or foolish.
Anne, satire and hate are neither coextensive nor mutually exclusive; they overlap. Just because something is satirical does not mean it is not also hateful. Calling it satire, even if correct, is quite beside the point.
John Doe:
At just three levels, that wasn’t even close to a personal record for nested parentheses; I’ve made it to at least seven or eight in e-mails.
I like Amanda. She is funny, smart, and has an exhubarance of diction that I love. She is also caustic “vulgar” and unapologetic about her views.
If you don’t get the joke, that’s okay. I don’t get Carlos Mencia. But, I think Edwards hired her, not because of her views, but because of her BLOGGING experience. She knows how to run a blog: how to moderate comments, how to keep spam from getting on, how to put up firewalls, et cetera. Out of all this discussion, that’s what everyone doesn’t seem to understand: it may not be her views or her writing that she was hired for.
Really? John Edwards could just as easily have picked someone from RedState, because he wasn’t looking for someone’s “views,” but just for their experience with comment spam? That’s a novel theory of this whole situation.
So much for Edwards’s “bold” decision to hire two bomb-throwers without vetting them. According to his campaign spokesman, Jennifer Palmieri, the campaign is already re-considering their foolish decision. Not based on anything Marcotte or McEwan has said or done since being hired, mind you - just based on the stuff they knew or should have known about when making the decision to hire them in the first place.
Hire first, vet second. Bold, or hopelessly incompetent? You be the judge.
How many of those condemning Edwards for his choice in hiring Amanda would ever have voted for him anyway?
I don’t vote, so wouldn’t have voted for Edwards–but I’d consider him and Obama the least bad of the Democrats running.
Sam, is your not voting part of your Anabaptist commitment? If so, that’s impressive indeed.
I’m supporting Obama because I consider him an extraordinary candidate, but I don’t have an unfavorable view of Edwards. (Of the four candidates on the national ticket in 2004, I think he was by far the best, and wonder if the result might have been reversed had he headed the ticket rather than Kerry.)
As a blogger, this is an interesting affair. On the one hand, the hiring of Marcotte was perceived by many in the blogosphere (before the Duke and then Catholic League scandals emegred) as a coup, a testament to the importance of blogs and bloggers in presidential campaigns. Now, the argument among pro-Marcotte types seems to be, “She’s a blogger, we shouldn’t evaluate her appointment on the content or tone of her writings.”
Imagine if any Democrat had appointed as his or her press secretary someone who had said the things that Marcotte wrote. An uproar would have ensued. If campaigns are to consider the appointment of an official blogger as important, as Edwards’ people clearly did, it seems to me they at least should have looked over Marcotte’s writings to identify possible problem areas.
Oh, I have no problem evaluating Amanda on her writing. She writes hard-hitting satire. Does Edwards share her views on all issues? Almost certainly not. But politics is about coalition building, and one way to build coalitions is to bring into your campaign folks who can reach out to a variety of different groups. Amanda is also capable of “toning it down” in a way that we would expect of any hired gun.
Hey, I’ll issue a challenge, right here. If John Edwards keeps Amanda on staff, he gets $50 from me. If he buckles and lets her go, then that $50 goes to Hillary. (Just to be clear, we’ve gotta wait at least three weeks, until the end of February, by which time John will either have wilted under pressure or proved he’s got a backbone to go with the great hair.)
Hugo said: “(Amanda) writes hard-hitting satire.”
If we accept this statement as ‘fact,’ then the very same thing is true for Rush Limbaugh (who is in essence Amanda’s mirror-image), Michelle Malkin, and other so-called “wingnuts” relative to their commentary.
More “inconsistency” on your part Hugo? And so it goes…
Sam, is your not voting part of your Anabaptist commitment?
Yes.
I voted during the time I was not Plain, but I don’t see any way of reconciling voting and non-resistance.
Rush Limbaugh (who is in essence Amanda’s mirror-image)
Except that Limbaugh is a racist and a drug addict; and a hipocrite who believes in harsh punishment for all drug offenders who are not him.
Also, Malkin is a racist, defending the racist incarceration of people who are merely descended from a nation of people that invaded the country her ancestors were from. When people note that she’s Asian, this obfuscates. She’s a Filipino who defends anti-Japanese racism.
Uh, let’s all avoid the thread drift here and stay narrowly on the topic of Amanda and John Edwards.
hatred of white males is legendary
Legendary in the minds of MRAs. I’m a white male. I don’t think she hates white males. Hugo is a white male. He doesn’t think she hates white males. Her partner, Marc Faletti, is a white male. He doesn’t think she hates white males.
The presumption of innocence is a rule that applies to a jury, along with limitations on admissible evidence and a burden of proof far in favor of the accused — because criminal trials are, to paraphrase Judge Richard Maitsch, not about whether the accused did it, but about testing the sufficiency of the government’s proof. Amanda’s blog is not a court of law and she is not a jury. If the media, MSM, blog or otherwise, were to apply this presumption they would act quite differently — for example, there would be no Nancy Grace show. In fact, most folks generally believe that OJ Simpson killed his wife, though a jury found the proof legally insufficient. People can still assert a view of what happened in a criminal case, even when no decision has been made. I, for example, believe that Scooter Libby perjured himself; whether a jury (applying the presumption of innocence and weighing only the legally admissible evidence) reaches that conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt we have yet to learn. Therefore, your comparison is spurious.
Your accusation that Amanda uses drugs because she holds strong opinions should get you permanently banned from this blog.
Further, the argument proves too much: the same could be said of Malkin or Coulter, or you or me. I, for one, have not used illegal drugs or even alcohol in my adult life. So that’s a counterexample that demonstrates that one cannot infer drug use from strong opinions and occasional intemperate language.
Also, Limbaugh is no hero. He got caught and pleaded guilty to a criminal offense — how could he not concede the truth of what he admitted as a legally binding matter?
Hugo, I see you wisely deleted the post to which I responded.
Thomas, you’re replying to a post of Mr. Bad’s; he’s generally no longer welcome here, as he’s a “one-note Charlie” of MRA nastiness. A few of his comments get through, but most will be deleted under my new comments policy. Do let’s stay off Limbaugh and Malkin, as fascinating as the two are…
Sorry — I should have waited to see if you hauled it down. Mine should probably come off as well; it is now apropos of nothing.
Thomas, your comparison to O.J. is spurious. One jury said he didn’t do it, but a mountain of publicly available evidence said he did, as did the second jury to hear the case. Further, neither jury, nor even O.J.’s lawyers, questioned that the crimes in question occurred at all, nor has anyone, O.J. included, offered even the flimsiest evidence of a “real killer” whose own initials don’t match those of orange juice. By contrast, there is no evidence that any rape occurred at the Duke lacrosse party. All we have is the bare allegation of one stripper, who has a long history of both false criminal allegations and other criminal offenses of her own, and who can’t even keep her own story straight. Aside from contradicting herself, all of her mutually contradictory stories are contradicted not only by the entire lacrosse team, but also by the other stripper who was present the night of the nonexistent crime. Her original account gave David Evans a moustache he can prove he never had, and had Reade Seligman attacking her at a time when he was clearly not there. Then, when these facts became public, she revised her story to accomodate these inconvenient facts. And don’t get me started on the DNA evidence, which implicates just about every male in the greater Durham area who doesn’t play lacrosse, countered only by the meaningless match between the accuser and the fake fingernails she had worn and subsequently discarded.
What does all this have to do with Marcotte? Plenty. All this and more was well known and widely publicized well in advance of January 21, 2007. Whatever excuses she may have had for believing Mike Nifong initially, by the time she made the post in question she either flat-out knew that the boys were innocent of the acts she accused them of, or at a minimum, she acted with reckless disregard of this fact. Either way, it’s actionable libel, even after taking into account the heightened standard of proof when discussing a matter of public interest. If I were one of them, I’d sue her. I certainly wouldn’t think of voting for a candidate who knowingly hired her as a blogmaster, or who hired her unknowingly (read: without doing his homework) and then failed to right that wrong shortly after learning about it.
And yes, that is easier for me to say when discussing a candidate I wouldn’t vote for anyway, but I like to think I’d be equally unimpressed, if not more so, if “my” guy did the same thing. If not, that only proves I’m a hypocrite who goes too light on my own kind, it’s not evidence that I’m wrong now. If anything, it’s easier to be objective when discussing the guy you don’t much care for - and seeing as we’re talking about the Democratic Primary rather than the general, I really don’t have a dog in this fight. As far as I’m concerned, President Barack, President Hillary and President Edwards are all equally bad options, and all stand roughly equal chances of reaching that office once any of them makes it through the primary.
I suspect Hugo’s point wasn’t to expose your hyprocracy, but rather to highlight the rather obvious fact that noone expressing loud outrage over this seems to have had any plans to vote for Edwards anyway. So far, all this does is give people who didn’t much like him anyway (in Johnson’s case, weren’t going to vote for him anyway) a bit of confirmation, which shouldn’t have much impact on Edwards.
Hypocrisy is one word I just can’t spell.
Unless, of course, you mean government by small people, of small people and for small people, in which case “hypocracy” is just about right.
Both bomb throwers are out. Hillary thanks you for the donation.
I’ll wait until the Edwards people confirm it, X, before sending the money to Ms. Clinton. But if it’s true, he makes no friends with this. Those he appeases will never vote for him, and he’ll lose allies as well.
I should adjust that statement: she may not have been hired ENTIRELY because of her political views.
She’s officially out.
I guess Hugo should have waited a few more minutes before posting his big bet.
I’d venture to say that he isn’t very good at reading society. Just my opinion.
Couldn’t disagree more, Hugo. Keeping such hatemongers as those two on board would have made Edwards the darlings of the nutroots, and political poison to everyone else. Bear in mind that while nutroots do wonders for fundraising (witness Howard Dean), they have a near-perfect record at losing primaries (witness Howard Dean, plus every other candidate they’ve backed except Ned Lamont) and a perfect record of losing generals (witness Ned Lamont). There’s no reason to think an Edwards-Marcotte ticket would have fared any better.
Of course hiring and firing two bloggers overnight makes the Edwards campaign appear slightly inept, but in the long run, it won’t cost them anything except your $50 (or, depending on how you look at it, a net loss of $100 to Hillary, the other pro-war-until-it’s-unpopular Senator seeking the office). Since the campaign acted swiftly, it’s a minor technical glitch. Unless they do something really boneheaded and hire them back, by this time tomorrow l’affaire Marcotte will be yesterday’s news, both literally and figuratively.
I suppose it is possible that Ms. Palmeiri’s cagey response indicates that the news report is wrong, and that the Edwards campaign really hasn’t made a final decision yet. However, I’m not sure whether that’s any more or less “possible” than the stories we always hear when a politician mired in scandal or a political appointee under fire suddenly resigns “voluntarily” to spend more time with his family. If Palmeiri is smart, she’ll do exactly what I think she is doing: tell both bloggers to get lost, but delay any formal announcements until after the story has gone stale and no one cares anymore.
Uh, the Amanda I know won’t stay quiet if she’s fired, nor should she. Edwards is no Howard Dean; until today, I meant that as a compliment.
Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit?
A: You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology.
This is who you’re defending, Hugo. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Your response in this case suffers from hyper-antiperistasis. Maybe it’s unfair for me to post such a strong response, because I hardly ever post, but I do read your blog regularly. I disagree with a number of your views, but you’re one of the few mainstream Evangelical-Feminists who is articulate, bright, clean [1], and nice looking. Actually, maybe it would be good for her to remain with Edwards - we’d be spared her bile. I’ve got a whole lot more to say, but that’s all I feel like writing now.
[1] Not having met you in person, I can’t say for sure, but you strike me as the sort who, like Barak Obama, bathes regularly.
Oh, Rick, I’m very clean. Mind you, I don’t like to bathe. I like stewing in my own pong, to mix Americanish with an Anglicism, but my wife, my students, my Pilates coach, and the chinchillas all ask that I stay bathed.
I’m also articulate. I await odes of praise from Joe Biden.
It might be the whole not-Christian thing, but I found that funny. Vulgar, yes, but hardly insulting.
Thomas: “sat·ire /ˈsætaɪər/ –noun”
Regardless of the dictionary definition, in common usage, it seems, sarcasm is considered low-brow; in particular it is meant for no purpose other than to wound. The word derives from the Greed word “sarx,” meaning to tear flesh. Satire can be uplifting even to those who hold contrary views and is generally held in higher esteem by most people.
Thomas: “I should add that the only people who seem to deny that what Amanda does is satire, are those who hold the views she skewers”
I deny it and I generally do not hold the views she skewers. I think we can agree on a definition of “only.”
Hugo: “How many of those condemning Edwards for his choice in hiring Amanda would ever have voted for him anyway?”
Count me. And I never find that I’m all that unique.
You want biting satire? Here is biting satire.
Hugo — one last word — whatever your feelings about Amanda Marcotte, *surely* you realize that she has written many, many things that would strike about 90% of Christians (of all stripes) as deeply offensive and derogatory. Surely you realize that this sort of “passion” or “satire” or whatever you call it would come back to bite Edwards in the ass, and would undermine his attempt to look moderate and reasonable in the eyes of middle-of-the-road voters.
Here’s what makes Amanda unique: When I was 13 or 14, we got into the “fucking this” and “fucking shit that” because it was new and it made teachers and other adults mad. We would have laughed our heads off at the irreverence of the “holy spirit’s jizz being in Mary”. Haw haw. What makes Amanda unique among most adults is that she has continued on at that level as an adult.
I don’t personally find her insightful or intelligent, but she’s a fun read because most adults have learned the value of trying to present their ideas in a more … adult … way. She’s kind of like the comedian who gets laughs for putting things in his nose and eating worms.
I think you’ve nailed it, Tether.
I used to teach 13 and 14 year-olds and nothing delights them like the fuckity fuck fuck ad nauseum.
Except for drawing penises in textbooks.
Sigh.
Well, looks like this phase of the battle is over. Hugo and the netroots have their Candidate With Cajones, who will likely win the primary, Amanda keeps her job, and the Millstone Sisters will sink Edwards in the general. Amanda’s so-called apology is so terribly dishonest. She sold out for a cushy job. I’m still puzzled as to why she ever wanted to work for a born-again godbag who doesn’t support gay marriage.
Regarding comments like this: “[Amanda is a] blogger whose blog is known only for poking a stick in people’s eyes as often as possible?”
What I find fascinating is how many people on the fringe of both the right and left go around looking for sticks that are trying to poke their eyes out. Then they generalize that all of the left/right is that way. Talk about juvenile, reductionist thinking. This “othering” is what should be publicly flogged.
Colin: “What I find fascinating is how many people on the fringe of both the right and left go around looking for sticks that are trying to poke their eyes out. Then they generalize that all of the left/right is that way. Talk about juvenile, reductionist thinking. This “othering” is what should be publicly flogged.”
Best I can tell, the only difference between Marcotte and Malkin is that they go to rival junior high schools. What’s amazing is the degree of reductionist thinking; that is, the utter insularity of it. Hugo says it so well (as do many others on both wings of the same turkey): “How many of those condemning Edwards for his choice in hiring Amanda would ever have voted for him anyway?” Come to think of it, if I remember my developmental psychology, it’s right around the age of junior high that kids become aware of a world beyond their own neighborhoods. Not quite having yet reached that stage, neither side can imagine a world beyond their two junior highs; that is, neither side can possibly imagine that there’s a world of moderates out there who might be deeply alienated and dissolusioned by all this “you’re a wingnut, no you’re a wingnut.”
It was very telling, for example, that many of Marcotte’s supporters were “upset with Edwards’ tone,” failing to notice the tone of Marcotte’s nonapology apology - the classic “I’m sorry IF…” This is the condescension concession. It says so much that, when the money’s on the line, this tough-talkin’ master satirist can do no better than mutter a few cliched weasel words.
One of the most bizarre comments I heard (often) in defense of Marcotte was most clearly made by Amp: “Nor is it just about our right to say bad words, like “cunt” and “fuck,” on our own private website without becoming unemployable.” Private? PRIVATE?? You might have an expectation of privacy on your own website if you don’t want your words seen by Eccentric Gallumbits, The Triple-Breasted Whore of Eroticon VI. Between and among Earthlings, though, it’s the least private thing possible. I hope, that if she’s going to be blogmistress for the leader of the free world, she learns what “www” stands for.
One thing that both sides have said is true; the blogosphere is going to become increasingly important to our political discourse. My travels through that sphere tell me we’re in deep shit.
I’m hoping what happened is this - Edwards and Marcotte reached a deal in which he’d announce that he was supporting her and, a few days later, she’d resign. If she cares about him, she’ll do it regardless.
“Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit?
A: You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology. ”
And you, an alleged “Christian” are now defending this shit. You are the definition of pCm (pseudoChristianMoron). You’ve sold your soul, sicko.
“One of the most bizarre comments I heard (often) in defense of Marcotte was most clearly made by Amp: “Nor is it just about our right to say bad words, like “cunt” and “fuck,” on our own private website without becoming unemployable.” Private? PRIVATE?? You might have an expectation of privacy on your own website if you don’t want your words seen by Eccentric Gallumbits, The Triple-Breasted Whore of Eroticon VI. Between and among Earthlings, though, it’s the least private thing possible. I hope, that if she’s going to be blogmistress for the leader of the free world, she learns what “www” stands for.”
Haha. Duh!