While the blogs are a flutter with whether another Amanda Marcotte is being fired by the Edwards campaign, let’s point out what’s going on.
The effort to get Edwards to fire Marcotte is from one of the biggest idiots on the planet, William Donahue of the Catholic League. If you criticize Bill, you are anti-Catholic. And lot’s more like:
* “Name for me a book publishing company in this country, particularly in New York, which would allow you to publish a book which would tell the truth about the gay death style.” [MSNBC’s Scarborough Country, 2/27/04]
* “The gay community has yet to apologize to straight people for all the damage that they have done.” [MSNBC’s Scarborough Country, 4/11/05]
* Addressing former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) in a press release, Donohue said: “[W]hy didn’t you just smack the clergyman in the face? After all, most 15-year-old teenage boys wouldn’t allow themselves to be molested. So why did you?” [10/4/06]
* “I’m saying if a Catholic votes for Kerry because they support him on abortion rights, that is to cooperate in evil.” [MSNBC’s Hardball, 10/21/04]
* “We’ve already won. Who really cares what Hollywood thinks? All these hacks come out there. Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It’s not a secret, OK? And I’m not afraid to say it. … Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes. I like families. I like children. They like abortions. I believe in traditional values and restraint. They believe in libertinism. We have nothing in common. But you know what? The culture war has been ongoing for a long time. Their side has lost.” [MSNBC’s Scarborough Country, 12/8/04]
* “Well, look, there are people in Hollywood, not all of them, but there are some people who are nothing more than harlots. They will do anything for the buck. They wouldn’t care. If you asked them to sodomize their own mother in a movie, they would do so, and they would do it with a smile on their face.” [MSNBC’s Scarborough Country, 2/9/06]
It’s kind of like one person embodying all of Illinois Review, and apparently the Edwards campaign might just do what he wants. The other person primarily pushing it is Michelle Malkin. She publishes on V-Dare amongst other sites. It also publishes Jared Taylor of the American Renaissance and celebrates Sam Francis. V-Dare is at the very center of modern white supremacy and the movement supporting it.
If you can’t stand up to those two, who can the campaign stand up to?
And to the media? Why are Donahue and Malkin given any credibility? Why don’t you start putting Indymedia columnists on the news to balance them out? Because that’s only a start to how far left you’d have to go to find a similar voice.
Yeah, for sure. And while I’m completely in agreement with the primary points you and others are making (a campaign should be loyal to its supporters, it should ignore extremists who are sure to oppose it no matter what happens, and if you can’t stand up to these guys then you have no hope of dealing effectively with a full-on presidential race, much less a presidency), there’s a secondary point that I’d like to make also:
We all hate the cautious focus group-tested way that campaigns usually sound, and Edwards in particular has promised that he’s past that kind of campaigning. Yet here he’s apparently considered firing someone pretty much because she’s used profanity a couple times, while expressing opinions that are occasionally slightly out of the mainstream (emphases on slightly and occasionally!).
So this is the new I’m-not-controlled-by-polls-and-image-gurus John Edwards? Forget the candidate: every staffer has to pass the litmus test of never having said anything controversial?