John Edwards not only has great hair, he is my hero today. Contrary to an erroneous report in Salon magazine yesterday, the Edwards campaign has NOT fired Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan as his bloggers. (Thanks should go to Liza at Culture Kitchen for keeping us all updated so well these past few days.) Despite a firestorm of criticism, Edwards stood firm. This statement has just been released :
The tone and the sentiment of some of Amanda Marcotte’s and Melissa McEwan’s posts personally offended me. It’s not how I talk to people, and it’s not how I expect the people who work for me to talk to people. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that kind of intolerant language will not be permitted from anyone on my campaign, whether it’s intended as satire, humor, or anything else. But I also believe in giving everyone a fair shake. I’ve talked to Amanda and Melissa; they have both assured me that it was never their intention to malign anyone’s faith, and I take them at their word. We’re beginning a great debate about the future of our country, and we can’t let it be hijacked. It will take discipline, focus, and courage to build the America we believe in.
Bold emphasis mine. Sorry, Dennis Kucinich, you just lost my endorsement. John Edwards, you just got mine — and a credit card donation as well!
I was afraid our lad might cave; it might have been the politically expedient thing to do. This is a gutsy move by an increasingly gutsy man whose views are increasingly progressive.
Thanks, John; hurrah for Amanda, hurrah for Melissa, hurrah, hurrah!
UPDATE: Reading the threads at Pandagon and Feministe, it seems that many are upset with Edwards’ tone. According to some, it wasn’t enough that he didn’t fire them, he ought not to have suggested that he found their language “intolerant.” Well, I adore Amanda (I read Melissa less often), and I can easily see how folks could find some of her posts to be “intolerant.” I find the substance of her views, however, to be very much in synch with my own and with our shared progressive ideals. Edwards did what he needed to do, which was disassociate himself from language that many people did find offensive, while bravely refusing to cave to right-wing pressure to fire these two immensely talented women.
Others may find his statement paternalistic or passive, but given the political realities of our era, keeping Melissa and Amanda on staff was, to me, very courageous.
UPDATE II: Here’s David Broder in the New York Times. Could this story be on the front of the paper of record?
Personally, I was dissatisfied by the fact that Edwards didn’t point out the hypocrisy of his critics. The right wing bloggers and talking heads who threw this tantrum are just as fond of `intolerant’ language, if not more so, than Amanda and Shakes. Edwards could have either conceded the point while attacking the double standard, or stood up for everyone’s right to express their personal views in their own language on their personal blogs. He did neither, and that’s why his tone here strikes me as a lame compromise. I will, at least, continue to consider him a viable option for my vote.
I find it highly significant that you and I both quoted from the same line of Jabberwocky in our posts about this subject. :)
I love it, Elayne.
Sometimes, Noumena, attacking your critics is exactly the wrong thing to do. We don’t dismantle the master’s house using the master’s tools; Edwards was right not to go after Malkin and Donahue because they aren’t worth going after.
More accurately, because the way he went after them was much more effective. “You guys are hypocritical, lying sacks of of shit” may be the truth, but it doesn’t defang their tantrums quite as well.
From the other side of the fence (or maybe just from the top of the fence, caught in the middle), Catholics who are less than thrilled to agree with Donahue about anything, nonetheless have grave reservations about Marcotte’s demonstrable lack of civility in discussions of religion.
http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/post/index/762/Edwards-vs-Donohue-Death-Match
Malkin and Donahue are anything but champions of a pluralist society. Still, I hope you can also see how folks with a commitment to the Catholic faith (even folks who aren’t politically “pro-life” or even vaguely pro-patriarchy) might not be able to see Marcotte as interested in a pluralist society that respects religious belief.
I suppose, prefer, that I feel as if I know Amanda; I sense that she is no more opposed to pluralism than Swift was in favor of cannibalism. It’s hard satire that isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.
(Thanks for the link; it’s true, most Catholics I know don’t tithe. The evangelicals, Mormons, and Kabbalists I know are more committed to that 10% thing.)
Looks like I was wrong to believe that obnoxiously whiny screed at Salon. I may also have been wrong to predict that Edwards can’t win with bloggers like Marcotte and McEwan aboard … but I’m not. Oh well, it’s not as though Edwards had a real shot at the Presidency to begin with. Not that he really needed it anyway, his own house is a lot nicer than the one at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Is the the whole “He’s a nig^&*h . . . forty years ago he would have been strung up with a fork in his a$$” rant “hard satire?”
Oh puhleeze. Gutsy? Calling out the rabble on the right for the bunch of fascistic thugs they are. That’d be gutsy. Calling out Amanda and Melissa, but not actually firing them? Less so.
And if the ‘political realities’ of our era are that the concerns of folks like Malkin and Donohue trump values of folks like Amanda and Melissa, sure doesn’t say much for our era.
That NYT article was actually written by John Broder, Hugo. It’s too bad, because I was all set to make a Broderella joke about it.
Dang, you’re right, Ilyka; when I see “Broder” I don’t even bother to look…
I got REALLY SERIOUS about Edwards when he Hired Amanda and Shakes; when I heard that he had even CONSIDERED firing them, I was ready to torpedo his entire campaign, and now that he has followed my advice and NOT fired them I feel I must give HIM a chance.
But he’s isn’t in my good graces entirely yet. His paragraph is so politiciany. The reason Amanda and Shakes are being hated on so fervently is because THEY ARE FEMINISTS.
A lot of people just really, really really hate feminists. It’s BIZARRE.
You may have experienced this yourself, Hugo! Har har har. I mean I KNOW you have.
I wonder if they will go after Amanda for being an Atheist now.
Nah, she’ll just play the satire card again. She’s not really an atheist, all her comments to that effect were just intended to make fun of atheists. Think dead parrot + it’s a pun.
“The reason Amanda and Shakes are being hated on so fervently is because THEY ARE FEMINISTS.”
No…it’s her commentary, which many find to be shrill and extremist.
Hate to say I told you so, Hugo, but it does seem true that Edwards’ hiring of Marcotte is already causing a problem. I can also almost guarantee that this isn’t going away; If Edwards does become the dem nominee, then all the RNC or rep nominee has to do is run an ad or two featuring a couple of the more caustic of Marcotte’s posts and label them as being written by one of Edwards “chief aids”; it could be more damaging than the swift boat ads. And just like the swift boat ads, it doesn’t matter how truthful the ads are or what Marcotte’s initial intentions were. You heard it here first. Marcotte may last into the early primary season, but I doubt Edwards would be able to hold onto her much longer than that without doing serious damage to his own image.
And for the record (answering a query from an earlier post), though it’s way to soon for me to even really consider who to vote for (there will be at most three candidates left when my primary comes, so why waste time seriously considering candidates now, especially since I have no money or time to contribute), I absolutely would have considered voting for Edwards, and he even would have been near the top of my list for his populist tone. But I will absolutely not vote for him if Marcotte is working for him, so this is indeed a likely vote that he has lost. Too much of what Marcotte does is “othering” from a lefty point-of-view; just because she’s doing it from a relatively marginal position doesn’t make it anywhere close to right. While I’m quite liberal myself, I find myself getting mad almost weekly (very often in the comment section on this blog; I also work in an English department) when I run into instances of the left lumping all religious people into a single group and not even critiquing them but ridiculing them. How is that trying to build bridges to make this world a better place for all? How is that trying to build a more just society? How is that in any way trying to espouse some sort of pluralism?
which many find to be shrill and extremist
Well, if they weren’t feminists, nobody would be calling them “shrill”.
Indecisive, it doesn’t matter at this point–Edwards could have fired them on the spot and he’d still get swift-boating ads about how he used to employ them.
Oddly, I find the whole foofaraw a refreshing change from the “OMGWTFBBQ Edwards is a TRIAL LAWYAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111!!” crap.
I must admit that while I am glad that the two bloggers weren’t fired, I don’t really understand the “now I am an Edwards person” mentality that I see everywhere. The way I see it is that the Edwards campaign screwed up on the vetting, got caught with their hands in the cookie jar by one interest group (Catholic League), fired or strongly considered firing the two bloggers, someone in the campaign then leaked that info to stir up another constituency (netroots), and then the campaign caved to that second constituency. The fact that they caved on the right side doesn’t seem to really give them advantage over Clark or Obama who managed not to screw up in the first place.
The Edwards campaign realized that the netroots could probably hurt them more in the primary than a fairly extremist Christian organization which wouldn’t get Edwards any votes even if he compromised. Maybe that’s a big win for the netroots, but it certainly doesn’t demonstrate any “backbone” in any sense of the word beyond “I like this person’s decision, so I’ll call it courageous.”
I guess I am curious why people are going past “Edwards made the right call, my estimation of him went up a few points” to “I am an Edwards person now” over other progressive alternatives like Obama or Kucinich or whomever.
Full disclosure: As it stands, I am strongly leaning towards giving Obama my (meaningless) primary vote, but can be convinced otherwise.
I’m just pleasantly surprised that Amanda was able to write a whole paragraph without resorting the usual bile and vulgarity.
Several paragraphs actually.
I wonder how long it can last before she explodes…
If this had been any other interest group (say gays, African Americans, Jews or Labour unions) does anyone think the decision would have been the same? These people insulted Christianity, Catholics, the Pope and the Blessed Virgin Mary in terms that are literally unprintable. They have an absolute right to do that. But then to turn around and say that they didn’t mean to insult anyone’s beliefs or offend itself beggars belief. They obviously did. And while Edwards has a right to do whatever he wants with his staff, his stupid insensitivity to Catholics and the Christian left in particular does not bode well for him. I’m suprised you’re jumping in on this, Hugo, after all the rhetoric about Democrats being more welcoming of religious believers. Net freedom is an important thing, but to try and dodge responsibility for what you write by saying that you didn’t mean what you obviously did is dodgy in the extreme.
in terms that are literally unprintable
Really? If you printed them out, the ink would melt off the page? The words themselves vanish from the Internet out of a collective sense of horror?
By the way, Jews are “religious believers”.
Who said Jews weren’t religious believers? If you reread my post, I said that if it were any other interest group (ie: other than Catholics), the bloggers would have been fired, and that this insensitivity (to religion, and the sensibilities of Christians (and Muslims) does not bode well for the Democrats’ outreach to religious believers (all, not just Catholics).
By “literally unprintable”, I meant “not just offensive in the sense that “unprintable” is often used, but corresponding to the literal meaning of unprintable, which is “not fit for print on the grounds of infringing public taste or morality”. But then you knew that, just as I am sure you also know that things like the following are unprintable.
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.
Now, she is free to say that. But, in my humble opinion, to turn around afterwards and say that there was no intent to offend anyone or their beliefs is disingenuous, to say the least. There was.
ie: other than Catholics
You’re assuming Amanda is nasty about Catholicism and neutral (or better) on other religions, which isn’t in fact the case.
And I knew what you meant. I was just being amused at the misuse of ‘literally’.
I should know better, I have an English degree. I can’t spell “recommend” either. :-)
You’re assuming Amanda is nasty about Catholicism and neutral (or better) on other religions, which isn’t in fact the case.
Hence the point. She might be an equal opportunity offender, but John Edwards isn’t. Some groups are important enough that he has to placate them. Christians, including Catholics, obviously aren’t. Replace the anti Christian rhetoric with anti-gay or anti-African American rhetoric, make John Edwards a Republican, and then tell me if you find such language acceptable.
Is it really so subtle? Amanda attacks those who use religion in the political sphere as justification for circumscribing the rights of women (among other groups). She does not attack an individual’s religious beliefs until/unless that person uses those beliefs to forge a political (and therefore, public) stance. Very often they use that religious justification for their beliefs as some sort of sheild, expecting the fact that their “ancient mythology” has lots of people believing it makes it unquestionable, even to those lots of other people who don’t believe in the same interpretation of dogma.
I’m sorry, but one person’s religion is another person’s belly laugh. That’s why keeping religion and politics separate is important in our multicultural society. I’m sure that those who most often comment on Hugo’s posts are better able than I to point out the huge numbers of different Christian sects in America, let alone those of other faiths. Or those of no belief in “ancient mythologies.” A religious argument ALONE is not sufficient in the public sphere. I may respect your religious beliefs, but if I don’t adhere to them, why should I give them precedence over my own understanding of the world? If you use religion in the public sphere, be prepared to defend those ideas with more than just religion.
I was not happy with Edward’s comments, but I’m happy he kept Amanda and Melissa on board. If he does win the nomination, he’ll have more than a year’s worth of fine work from both of them to point to in an order to quiet critics. Or, either or both of them will fall prey to a more concerted right-wing attack and Edward’s will fold. Lots of time between now and then and I’ll save my vote until it is time to judge the best candidate and not just by the company he keeps.
Is it really so subtle? Amanda attacks those who use religion in the political sphere as justification for circumscribing the rights of women (among other groups). She does not attack an individual’s religious beliefs until/unless that person uses those beliefs to forge a political (and therefore, public) stance.
So private religious belief is fine, but heaven forbid it should influence your moral values, your conscience, the way you vote or the political views you hold? And we’re all supposed to accept a public and imposed secularism because it’s hidden in a cloak of spurious “neutrality”? That means you get to express secularism in the public square, and I don’t get to express religion, I don’t get to “impose” my morality, but you get to “impose” yours. Sod that for a game of soldiers. I’m betting the majority of people of faith will agree with me, and I think John Edwards just lost the Catholic vote. This isn’t over by a long chalk.
You know, here’s where I often side with folks like John against the secularists. My commitment to women’s rights, my views on poverty and animal dignity, even my vegetarianism — these are all rooted in my faith. Faith was what drove Dr. King, what drove Gandhi; faith drove the abolitionists and faith drove many of our feminist foremothers. A solid Christian faith doesn’t lead automatically to conservative politics, but it frequently leads to politics of some kind — and in the case of many of us, to very left-wing views.
“I’m sorry, but one person’s religion is another person’s belly laugh.”
Well that’s just sophomoric.
Stephen
Hugo:
I understand that you respect Amanda’s views, her passion and skill as well. (To call her “kind,” however, is a bit of a stretch. Kinda like calling Mr. Bad balanced.) But, surely you must agree that there are many who share her positions but can articulate them in a more respectful way. She writes for those who agree with her & it will get her kudos in her own circles but it does zero, zilch, nada to advance any sort of understanding.
Stephen
She might be an equal opportunity offender, but John Edwards isn’t. Some groups are important enough that he has to placate them. Christians, including Catholics, obviously aren’t.
Let me see if I follow you: Amanda insults people of many religious faiths. Edwards does not instantly fire her. Therefore, Edwards, who is himself a Christian, hates Christians and doesn’t care what they think?
By the way, I would be interested in hearing what official representatives of the Church have to say about Edwards. Donohue doesn’t have any official capacity last I was aware.
xhttp://www.pandagon.net/
Amanda has resigned from her position as Edwards blogger.
Resigned, or “resigned?” Judging by the tone of her post, it doesn’t sound like a particularly amicable parting of ways.
“…which many find to be shrill and extremist…”
“Well, if they weren’t feminists, nobody would be calling them ’shrill.’”
I’m not sure I follow you. I’ve used the word “shrill” frequently, in its definition of “harsh” or “over-the-top.” I don’t think the word necessarily pertains to women, much less to feminists.
You are expecting amicable from Amanda? Again, she may be many things (including bright, articulate, funny, passionate) but she almost alwasy reprentes “the other” as clearly crass, hateful and combative — which is deeply ironic. For what it’s worth, I wish she’d tone down her rehtoric, avoid holding up the extremes as representative of the whole, and make some important points for social conservatives to consider. But, it’s remarkably hard to listen when someone is mocking you & figuratively pocking you in the chest for being a dumb-ass. Maybe I just need a thicker skin . . .
Stephen
“Amanda has resigned from her position as Edwards blogger.”
Hugo, you can have your Frabjous Day. I’ll have me a Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious day. Meanwhile, Amanda and several countless liberals remain clueless.
John and Hugo:
I’m sorry, I wasn’t as clear as I should be. I would strongly suspect that your religious beliefs influence your entire lives, not just your politics. But just because your religious belief leads you to think a thing, doesn’t mean that YOUR religious beliefs require ME to think such a thing as well. Just because person A says that her religion decrees that the earth is flat doesn’t mean that I must accept that such is the truth when I can prove that it isn’t. Person A is free to believe as she will, including arguing against funding expeditions that will fall off the edge. I am also free to do what I can to argue against flat-earth ideas as a matter of policy that will affect me.
Stephen:
That statement may be sophomoric, but does that make it untrue? To use my example above, if there is still a religion that tells me the earth is flat, I may very well laugh at the doctrine (I hope I would not laugh at the person holding that belief). I am willing to concede that you are more tolerant than I am and are able to treat all of the world’s religious doctrines as equally serious or true.
YetAnotherRick,
The views represented in the radfem blogs are neither Liberal nor Democratic. Also, Edwards is finished over this incident, these people (hugo, amanda, ginmar, etc etc,) are toxic now, you can safely ignore them for this election cycle.
Greg A,
Check your terminology. I know the term is fun to use because it sounds so scary, but neither Amanda or Hugo can be described as radical feminists.
“several countless”?
Annie G,
Wow, been a while since I read Hugo. Deep apologies for the comparison to Amanda and Ginmar. I was off base about that. I was assuming he was the same man now as he was when I last read his blog, whenever that was. It seems much more thoughtful and rational than I recall. I assumed things.
But what I find on Pandagon is inherently Radical Feminism, blogging for social change. It does not matter that the change she is advocating seems to be a hedonist, totally cynical, trash everything sort of change. I do not see much in the way of topical political discussion there, so its not liberal feminism… She doesn’t seem to have any economic agenda, Marxism is out. I doubt she is a hippy dippy ecofeminist type. From historic figures, she most resembles Dworkin, although Amanda seems much happier than Dworkin ever was. Given the similarities to Dworkin, I would have to say Amanda is almost certainly a Radical Feminist.
I am wondering if there was a subtext to your post that maybe implied I was rushing to judgement. You were probably right. Such is the power of the right wing echo chamber. I succumb to anger when I perceive something that might lengthen this FUCKING war. Ahhem excuse me… Probably said enough for now.
No, if you’re going to use the terms the way they’re used within feminist discourse, it does matter what sort of change she’s advocating. It does matter that Amanda is a porn liberal, which puts her at odds with one of the defining positions of radical feminism. ginmar may be a radical feminist (I think in fact that she is), but Amanda’s something else.
If I used your way of defining the categories, I’d be forced to place Susie Bright in the radical feminist camp (she leans Marxist in her economic theory, but she doesn’t blog much about that, so I couldn’t put her in the Marxist feminist bucket, and she’s does more cultural criticism than topical political discussion, so I couldn’t put her in the liberal feminist bucket, and she certainly advocates significant social change). But that would be totally at odds with how she defines herself, how other feminists define her, and the sharp contention between Bright’s “sex-positive feminism” and Dworkin’s “radical feminism.” Any way of mapping out feminism that would collapse Bright and Dworkin into the same camp strikes me as broken.
I am wondering if there was a subtext to your post that maybe implied I was rushing to judgement.
I’m not sure what Annie’s subtext may or may not have been, but overly broad use of the term “radical feminist” is a pet peeve of mine, since I’ve heard non-feminists use it even for, say, Betty Friedan (who’s practically the definitive example of liberal feminist, in the old liberal feminist vs. radical feminist distinction). I like to reserve it for people fairly close to Dworkin’s school of thought. I get similarly annoyed, FWIW, when “fundamentalist” gets applied to Christians who wouldn’t at all match the meaning of the word “fundamentalist” in internal Christian discussion.
Lynn Gazis-Sax,
I don’t think you can claim that Amanda is porn positive the way Susie Brite is. In fact, such a claim is absurd. A central thesis of Dworkins work on porn is that porn hurts women(it causes rape). When I type “pandagon porn” into google, the very first link points to this article: http://pandagon.net/2007/01/20/porn-male-preogative-female-crime/
Where she writes:
“I think this is a typical case of how our society handles the conflicting attitudes towards sex that patriarchy produces—i.e., views sex both as dirty and as a masculine preogative. The conflict between these two feelings is handled pretty much solely by scapegoating women, even if said women are actively trying not to be participants is the sexual behavior that is being treated as both criminal and a male preogative.”
In that passage it is almost as if she is channeling Dworkin. In that passage, she is very close to making a Dworkinesque pronouncement like, “porn is rape”. Yet Amanda never quite crosses that threshold.
At the same time, I am not claiming that Amandas views are exactly like Dworkins, only that they rhyme. Amandas views are certainly much more modern that Dworkins ever were. For example, Dworkin was against all porn, while Amanda seems to approve of gay porn, while railing against heterosexual porn. Also their motivations for their views on porn are quite different. Dworkins views on porn were driven by her rape experiences. While Amandas seem motivated by the grim reality of… porn in a relationship means no sex at all.
On the other hand, Amanda and Dworkins views on religion are nearly identical. I should add, my views are not dissimilar. However I derive them from principled weak atheism. Amandas and Dworkins views seem to come from opposition to patriarchy.
Also I would say the heir apparent to liberal feminism would be Hillary Clinton. I am really struggling to see any connection between Marcotte and liberalism. She has almost no liberal views, beyond the trendy small issues. It seems as if all her politics are the result of Bush hatred. That is a concern to me, because it means many of her liberal views will evaporate the moment she is asked to pay significant taxes. A liberal Ann Coulter if you will.
Actually, I think that Amanda wavers somewhat in her views toward heterosexual porn; I’ve seen posts in which she takes a relatively benign view of it, and others where she’s scrutinizing it for signs of patriarchy. She has sometimes described herself as a porn liberal, and she’s also made the occasional post which draws more from a Dworkin-style analysis. Such porn criticism as she does do seems to place porn on a par with other movies, music, etc. where she’d see patriarchal influences, rather than singling out Pornstitution. And her amused response to being singled out as one of Playboy’s favorite political blogs probably wouldn’t have come from any thoroughly radical feminist blogger. On the whole, I wouldn’t call her radical feminist in any consistent way, just occasionally influenced by radical feminists. ginmar, on the other hand, consistently leans toward radical feminism (I think - I haven’t read her as much as Hugo or Amanda). And Hugo’s Christian feminism is a separate thing from either radical feminism or sex-positive feminism.
I agree that Hillary Clinton’s an heir apparent to liberal feminism.
This is just too funny, the deconstruction of Amanda’s amassed literature.
Why don’t you all conduct an in-depth analysis into the real meaning of why Lucy always pulled the ball away when Charlie Brown tried to kick it, or into the motives behind people who don’t put on snow tires in the winter. Or simply read the collected works of Steve-O from Jackass.
Or … just get a real job and contribute something to society.
Oh, I forgot to write: Amanda is a little girl in a big girl suit. She’s the big honcho in her clique and will probably be voted Homecoming Queen. She’s the basis for the movie “Heathers”.
Other than that, I only sense an emptiness there … an emptiness with regard to intellect, empathy, maturity and true insight.
But we don’t require any of that from our Drama Queens or Homecoming Queens, do we? I thought not.
And, in summary, NO I was not voted Homecoming Queen. I am, in reality, insanely jealous of Amanda for that very reason.
I thought it was better to just admit it.
Wow. That happened much earlier than I predicted, but it was going to happen eventually, so I’m not surprised. The worst thing (well, besides the fact that Edwards really doesn’t know what the heck he’s doing, a fact that can be easily seen whether you initially agreed with these hirings or not) is that the right-wing shill Donohue got his way. But perhaps there’s something positive to come from it as well. In the past, I’ve seen Amanda lump large chunks of religious people into one huge group and collectively lambast them; she appears to be (at least giving lip service to) amending her ways (from her announcement at Pandagon):
“Another thing—this has doubled my committment to reaching out and helping highlight when the religious left fights the right wingers who have falsely claimed to speak for all religious people.”
Or … just get a real job and contribute something to society.
Some of us do have bosses that give us Sundays off :-). Some of us even have today off as a holiday.