Edwards’ Blogger “Fired” – Righty Bloggers Accused of Getting “Scalps”

Good news, bad news.

The good news is that the Edwards campaign has kind of fired its two hate-slinging bloggers. I say “kind of” because the campaign says they weren’t fired and would say more about it later. Salon seems willing to consider it a firing though.

The good news here is that these two bloggers won’t get rewarded for their contemptible and boorish work. Sure, this makes it even more a mortal lock that very few right-wing bloggers will ever get their chance to land a political blogging position. We all know the second any right-leaning blogger gets the nod, the left will be on it like stink on cowflop and as Ace demonstrates pretty well, the bar will be set so low an ant couldn’t limbo under it.

The bad news is that the story is being spun like this:

The right-wing blogosphere has gotten its scalps — John Edwards has fired the two controversial bloggers he recently hired to do liberal blogger outreach, Salon has learned.

Got that? We got our “scalps” as if this were some sort of witch-hunt (no pun intended) where two completely doe-eyed innocents were dragged screaming from the Edwards campaign and cast into outer darkness.

What garbage.

Here, Mr. Salon Writer, is what happened. John Edwards hired two women whose manners were several touches below that of the common guttersnipe and whose hatred for all things religious* bordered on the deranged. Bloggers demanded to know whether their employer knew about their opinions and, if he did, whether he shared them. Their opinions were obviously considered not suitable for a Presidential candidate, which is why they’ve been “fired”.

There was no “scalp-getting” here. So far as I know, no blogger on the right will ever have a problem with any other blogger finding success so long as they comport to some basic rules of decency and manners**. But if you’re going to make your bones with highly offensive anti-Catholic screeds and posts that rival Joe Pesci’s Goodfellas character for obscenities per sentence, you should expect that a lot of folks aren’t going to take kindly to your representing a national politician. They’re going to ask whether someone who would openly embrace your vulgarity and bigotry is someone they want in the White House.

It has nothing to do with left and right or counting coup. It has everything to do with whether we give boorishness a megaphone.

* Except for the religion that currently enslaves and kills more women than any other on the planet. Had they done that, not even Edwards’ campaign would have hired them. Bet on it.

** I don’t believe the blogosphere ought to become the Oxford Debate Club nor do I think bloggers ought to be Mary Poppins. But there’s a difference between really strong disagreement and the sort of things that Marcotte wrote on a routine basis.

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Category: Blogs and Blogging, The 2008 Horse Race