First Presidential 08 Opinion Post

[neadods]

Pam of Pam's House Blend explains clearly and succinctly why Edwards has plummeted in my opinon from "likely to get my vote" to "wouldn't piss on that man if he were on fire."

You can pick your stupidities. Was he:
1) Too damn dumb to vet blogs before he hires the bloggers?
2) Too politically naive to realize that whoever he hired would be personally attacked?
2a) Too politically naive to know what to do when the Swift Boating hit his campaign... again?
3) Too ball-less to stand up for his own decision to hire people?
4) Too weak to protect his own people from the inevitable attacks?

Any way you slice it, someone who rolls and shows his soft underbelly at the first serious campaign mudslinging and then throws his people to the wolves to make the wolves leave him alone is unfit to lead and defend the citizens of this (or any) country.

In the meantime, there's a whiny piece in the Post about Michelle Malkin that talks of her part in the blogger harassment as "She helped lead the charge against two liberal bloggers who resigned under pressure from John Edwards's presidential campaign" while avoiding the death threats levied against them and unironically pointing out that Malkin herself has moved to avoid harassment at her home.

(That the "two liberal bloggers" might have to move for the same reason is not discussed in the rush to condemn the vicious members of the "moonbat left." That Malkin has published the personal contact information of her enemies does get a one-line mention and her rebuttal without any evidence that the Post reporter actually looked to see if her claims were true... or mentioning what she told her minions to do with the information she provided.)

Comments

[karenmiller.livejournal.com]

OTOH, what about the leader of the Young Democrats (and I saw this on the box) who said she would fire anyone who blogged anti-black sentiments, but would not have fired these 2, or anyone else, for blogging anti-Christian sentiments?

Come on. What those women wrote was foul and disgusting, and if the objects of their vitriol had been members of one of the protected classes then they would have been fired out of a cannon. But no, to a particular section of the political spectrum it's perfectly okay to smear and malign Christians (most of whom are perfectly sane, decent people).

I absolutely agree they have the right to say/blog whatever they think and feel. Free speech is crucial. And so is the freedom to vigorously refute their opinions. (Threats etc are crap, always, no matter who is espousing them) and to call them out for saying some of the revolting things they said.

Edwards is an idiot, full stop. He should have done his homework before taking these two on, or, failing that, should have had the guts to see they are hate mongers and small, vicious, intolerant people who want to smear all Christians with a stinky brush because some Christians have completely lost the plot.

Hey, when the right-wingers do that to the Muslim population, all Muslims are terrorists because some Muslims are terrorists, isn't that supposed to be evil, or something?

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Have you actually read the original posts in question instead of the selections offered by Donahue? Because neither one is slandering Christianity in general, but both are raking down the illegal attempts of some Christians to legislate their morality over the lives of people, particularly women, in this country. As I do quite often myself, frankly - the push to make sure that women can't access contraception, or birth control, or abortion comes exclusively from Christians. So does the attempt to gut scientific standards in favor of creationism, or whatever its name du jour is.

Not to mention the hypocracy of mega preachers like Haggard harassing gay people for being gay... while he's so deep in the closet he can see Narnia. Or Fred Phelps protesting outside funerals.

Every single one of those people claims that it is their Christianity that gives them the moral right to do what they do, and that pointing out their illegality and immorality is vile, anti-Christian hate speech.

And yet, I (and Amanda, and Shakespeare's Sister) know well the difference between people of faith. I've always called it the "Fred to Fred Scale" because both Fred Phelps and Fred Rogers ("Mr. Rogers") are Christians, and their attitudes and actions are worlds apart.

Neither woman smeared all Christians. But oh, it's amazing how fast people will twist their words to claim so, to point to the unending "War on Christians" that's as real as the "War on Christmas."

Know what's really interesting? They weren't asked to leave the campaign because of the backlash. They both left because of the hate mail that came in waves when the backlash didn't get what Donahue wanted - those uppity women put in their place.

Amanda had someone pounding on the door of her house threatening her. Tell me again who the small, vicious, intolerate hatemonger is?

[karenmiller.livejournal.com]

Nothing excuses the hateful, criminal behaviour of those people. They are as Christian, in my mind, as the KKK. I doubt they'd recognise Jesus if they fell over him in the driveway, and back in the day they'd have been in the front of the Pharisee line, calling for Pilate to nail that criminal to the cross.

But

to call Christians motherfuckers, to make comments like : When God filled Mary with his sticky white Holy Spirit ...

that's crude and offensive and unnecessary. It's the kind of hate speech that gets other people pilloried, just so long as the targets aren't Christians.

They are revolting people. Edwards was an idiot to get into bed with them. You cannot defend that kind of ick by pointing fingers at other icky people.

There's more than enough distasteful behaviour to go round, here. But it's ingenuous to say that because you don't like many of the people doing the criticism, that their criticism is therefore, by definiton, invalid.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

That particular line is crude and offensive. I agree with you there. But I don't agree that simply because it is crude and offensive it is defacto hateful. It wasn't a threat. It wasn't a denigration of the humanity of any reader. It wasn't a call to hurt or pillory anyone. It pissed off many, but intimidated no one.

Since her detractors *have* threatened, pilloried, and roused the rabble against their enemies, I'm having a hell of a time trying to see their point of view that her crudity is as bad as their electronic and physical lynch mob. THAT is why I say their criticism is invalid, for they are bitching mightily that her crudity is is somehow equivalent to and reason for their threats. (The Malkin article whines that she had to move, but doesn't mention that *she* has led the mob that has made others move for the same reasons.)

And my contempt for Edwards remains... if he wanted these women to work for him, he should have done his homework. Once he picked them he should have known what to expect, and even if he couldn't stand up for his own decisions, he should have protected them from the physical intimidation that was slung their way.

[merclibrarian.livejournal.com]

Amanda Marcotte has an article on Salon.com today, Why I had to quit the John Edwards campaign.

You may have to sit through a commercial for something before you get access, but it's worth it.

The reaction from the right-wing has been so virulent! All out of proportion. But that's their modus operandi, isn't it? Scream loud and angrily enough and no one will notice you're not making any sense?

[karenmiller.livejournal.com]

What, and the extremist left isn't exactly the same? Please. They mirror each other. And stuck in the middle are the folk who are just trying to get by and be reasonable on the merits of each case in point.

[merclibrarian.livejournal.com]

But the right is so much better at it. More practice, since they've been at it longer. Better organizational skills, too. One might even call it impressive.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

They do. I agree here, each fringe is full of whackos. But right now our government has little do do with the folk in the middle, and when it's the whackos who are taking away proper science education, and putting their morality in place of our health care, then it's time for the silent majority to stop being silent and start doing.

And it's not always going to be cast in sweet, proper language. It's amazing how hard it is to be ladylike when you've got someone telling you you can't have your share of the government pledge to life, liberty, and happiness because their beliefs are more important than your autonomy. (The line about Mary was part of a much larger article about the religiously-based suppression of women's rights, including our legal rights to sex ed, birth control, and abortion.)

Were it any other religion, the commentary would be just as nasty because it is not the belief, but the action that is so infuriating.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

(3) and (4), for sure. Donahue and Malkin have no standing to attack the bloggers on any basis that involves the writing of hatred, denigration, or insult. Except possibly "it takes one to know one."

Edwards ought to have stood up to them from the first and told them they could take their hatred, hypocrisy, and slime back to the Hell they claim to believe in.

What a shame, on all counts. And the MSM is still playing the story as if the bloggers, and Edwards, are the bad guys. What dreck!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

And the MSM is still playing the story as if the bloggers, and Edwards, are the bad guys. What dreck!

So's the Post. I could have spit nails when I read that Malkin article.

The sad part about it

[signeh.livejournal.com]

...is this probably has little or nothing to do with what the bloggers said.

It's an effort to disrupt the Edwards campaign.

The opposition doesn't want to take on Edwards about the issues. It's too early - the issues may be different, at least in intensity, by New Hampshire.

They don't want to take on Edwards personally. He's been through a Presidential campaign - there's just not a lot of dirt to dig that hasn't already been dug, four years ago.

So if you can't work the issues and you can't work a smear, how do you destroy the guy who is probably the third strongest contender, and the only white male of the three?

You work his staff. Especially the staff that might reach younger, hipper, and otherwise unreachable voters. Like his bloggers.

Make him look stupid and careless; paint him as sympathetic to anti-Christan wingnuts. Keep him busy recreating the wheel, spending time and energy and money to restaff and rebuild his Internet image. Force him into damned if I do and damned if I don't mode; defend the bloggers and he loses the right; fire them and he loses the left.

If it hadn't been the bloggers, it would have been someone else.

Hilary and Obama staffers should take warning.

[shawan-7.livejournal.com]

I went to a talk last night held by a prominent blogger who is following the Libby trial, and was absolutely struck with the simularities of the audience witih fandom. The same indepth following of details (think canon addicts), the same dogmatic stances (Slash! No, het! No, BEASTIALITY is best!), the same you-must-follow-the-leader lemming look.

The difference between the blogger (the writer, the filmmaker, the producer) and her audience was that she'd done something; they were just wanna-bees; discussing in depth why a comma was dropped from the second edition vs the first and how in the grand scheme of the (written, filmed) universe it mattered.

Personally, I think a lot of personal blogs do it to shock people - that's how the comment about the Holy Spirit struck me, as juvenile and offensive. Shrug. With a click of the mouse, I go away to find something that's not screaming crudeness at the top of its lungs like a teenager whose just discovered how people can be offended by profanity.

But I think the Edwards campaign didn't do their homework. The situation shouldn't have occured. Nor did the newspaper that hired that right-wing-blogger months ago, for balance, and found out only later what he'd been writing.

There's no excuse for not doing your homework if a blogger's work is out on the web. None.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

the simularities of the audience witih fandom

I'm not surprised - fandom is human nature, writ small and fictional. The same behaviors are going to show up anywhere, in any group.

Speaking of bloggers work on the web, check out my commentary on the signing last night. I'll be posting as soon as I finish my email.

[wiliqueen.livejournal.com]

Well, crap. Check out of reality for one sunny week, and this is what I come back to. :-P

Guess it's time to start more closely examining my vague gut-level Hillary misgivings, and balance them against the vast swathes of uncharted territory in Obama-land. Love the guy to death, but I still think he let himself get talked into jumping the gun. Running for president is a full-time job, no matter what one's intentions, and I'd really rather he finished ONE term as my senator before taking it on. *sigh* So Edwards was way up there for me too.

There have to be SOMEBODY who can figure out the difference between centrism and pandering, dammit!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

There have to be SOMEBODY who can figure out the difference between centrism and pandering, dammit!

Well, it sure ain't McCain, Lieberman, or Edwards!