I must confess that I simply don't get it (well, except for the puppet show, which is predictable to a tedious degree).

So what if Arianna Huffington felt compelled to close her comments, and then started deleting (but not fast enough) hate-filled invective left by liberal commenters? I have to do that every time certain liberal sites link to mine.

It kind of comes with the clientele.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:35 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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For whatever reason, Salon.com picked up Amanda Marcotte's latest blameshifting attempt at dodging responsibility for her long track record of anti-Christian bigotry.

Marcotte is as tedious, suspicious, angrily self-righteous, and blissfully unaware of her own culpability as we've come to expect. Following her same tired script, she blames the "patriarchy" and the "right wing smear machine" for her downfall.

Frankly, I'd skip the article itself and read the other blog reaction to the article. Marcotte can't quite seem to grasp that she came under fire as a result of her own bitter words, taken in context.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:33 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Melissa McEwan of Shakespeare's Sister has followed Amanda Marcotte in resigning from the John Edwards Presidential train wreck:

I understand that there will be progressive bloggers who feel I am making the wrong decision, and I offer my sincerest apologies to them. One of the hardest parts of this decision was feeling as though I'm letting down my peers, who have been so supportive.

There will be some who clamor to claim victory for my resignation, but I caution them that in doing so, they are tacitly accepting responsibility for those who have deluged my blog and my inbox with vitriol and veiled threats. It is not right-wing bloggers, nor people like Bill Donohue or Bill O'Reilly, who prompted nor deserve credit for my resignation, no matter how much they want it, but individuals who used public criticisms of me as an excuse to unleash frightening ugliness, the likes of which anyone with a modicum of respect for responsible discourse would denounce without hesitation.

This is a win for no one.

I don't think I've read enough of her blog to know much about McEwan, but I can say this: she exhibited more class and dignity than Marcotte, even as I find it somewhat ironic that someone who calls my fellow Christians "christofascists" accuses others of unleashing "frightening ugliness, the likes of which anyone with a modicum of respect for responsible discourse would denounce without hesitation."

They did denounce the frightening ugliness, Melissa. You should know.

You wrote much of it yourself.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:33 PM | Comments (24) | Add Comment
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Just when it mattered least, Amanda Marcotte resigned from the John Edwards campaign:

I was hired by the Edwards campaign for the skills and talents I bring to the table, and my willingness to work hard for what’s right. Unfortunately, Bill Donohue and his calvacade [sic] of right wing shills don’t respect that a mere woman like me could be hired for my skills, and pretended that John Edwards had to be held accountable for some of my personal, non-mainstream views on religious influence on politics (I’m anti-theocracy, for those who were keeping track). Bill Donohue—anti-Semite, right wing lackey whose entire job is to create non-controversies in order to derail liberal politics—has been running a scorched earth campaign to get me fired for my personal beliefs and my writings on this blog.

In fact, he’s made no bones about the fact that his intent is to “silence” me, as if he—a perfect stranger—should have a right to curtail my freedom of speech. Why? Because I’m a woman? Because I’m pro-choice? Because I’m not religious? All of the above, it seems.

As ever, Marcotte just doesn't get it.

Bill Donohue may have been the catalyst bringing her anti-Christian, anti-Catholic bigotry to a national audience, but Amanda Marcotte was targeted because she was and is an unrepentant bigot, and for no other reason. Period.

Marcotte attempts to shift the blame to Bill Donohue, a bigot in his own right (his views on Judaism turn the stomach), but the reality is that Marcotte and Donohue are flip sides of the same vile coin.

Despite her protests, Marcotte's free speech was never curtailed. It was in fact her exercise of her free speech--her own bigoted words spread far and deep across her person blog over an extended period of time--that was responsible for the controversy surrounding her hiring. What Marcotte did not understand then, and either does not understand, or refuses to acknowledge now, is that free speech is not freedom from responsibility for those opinions you chose to exercise. Marcotte apparently thinks that "free speech" means she has the "right" to denigrate and offend others without those others having the ability to exercise those same free speech rights in protest. She wants freedom to be a critic without having that same critical eye cast in her direction. It is a double standard that she seeks, and nothing less.

Marcotte's resignation post also admits what many of us thought about her earlier apology. It was insincere; a blatant and calculated lie meant to excise her from criticism. She stated in her apology that:

My writings on my personal blog Pandagon on the issue of religion are generally satirical in nature and always intended strictly as a criticism of public policies and politics. My intention is never to offend anyone for his or her personal beliefs, and I am sorry if anyone was personally offended by writings meant only as criticisms of public politics. Freedom of religion and freedom of expression are central rights, and the sum of my personal writings is a testament to this fact.

Her statement now?

The main good news is that I donÂ’t have a conflict of interest issue anymore that was preventing me from defending myself against these baseless accusations. So itÂ’s on.

Marcotte now admits that she only issued her apology on the Edwards blog in a cynical attempt to keep her job. She knew her comments on her personal blog were never "satirical in nature and always intended strictly as a criticism of public policies and politics." Now that she is free of the Edwards campaign, she fully intends to revert back to form. "It's on."

The problem for Amanda Marcotte isn't that the criticisms of her writings were baseless. The problem for Amanda Marcotte is that the criticisms exposed precisely who she is.

It remains now to be seen if Marcotte joins the Ku Klux Klan. Not for the bigotry, you understand.

She just seems to love the idea of a burning cross.

Update: More reaction from Ace, Bryan, Glenn, Joe, Jeff, and Michelle.

A good cross-section of blog reactions at Memeorandum.com.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:07 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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It's a race to the bottom, kids.

Bill Donohue, president of the conservative-leaning Catholic League and the first to call on the Democratic presidential candidate to fire the bloggers, told FOXNews.com that he is not satisfied with Edwards' decision to scold — but not can — the staffers.

By not firing Andrea Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, Donohue said, Edwards is promoting anti-Catholicism. He said the 2008 Democratic contender's actions should be viewed in the same way it would be seen if Edwards had not fired a staffer who had used the 'n'-word.

"He's nothing more than David Duke with a blow-dried haircut," Donohue said of Edwards.

Considering the apparent shall we say, shared appreciation of the Jewish faith that Donahue and Duke seem to have in common, I think he better find a less self-immolating comparison.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:29 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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It appears that the Marcotte/McEwan/Edwards blog controversy has entered a second day with little letup in the comments coming from both the right and the left.

For those of you just coming around to this story, the John Edwards campaign hired a pair of comically stereotypical feminist bloggers (on who's advice, no one will say), Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon and Melissa McEwan of Shakespeare's Sister, respectively. Once hired, some conservative and libertarian bloggers began bringing to light some of the previous posts written by these bloggers (focusing on Marcotte in particular), many of which are offensive to those outside of the insular world of far-left political blogging. A right-wing bigot by the name of Bill Donahue began calling for their heads for comments written by these two that he said were anti-Catholic, these comments hit the New York Times, and the brouhaha went mainstream.

By late yesterday afternoon, word leaked out that Marcotte and McEwan had been fired by the Edwards campaign...or not.

There have been a lot of pixels slung around on both sides in the blogosphere over this one, but I've been particularly fascinated at the response thus far from the liberal blogs trying to close ranks around Marcotte and McEwan.

Some are attempting to the "right-wing character assassination machine" for the issue being raised. Others are declaring a "rightwing Swiftboat-style attack" on the two bloggers. Another claims that the "smear train" has been fired up.

My, how the goalposts have changed.

According to Wikipedia, character assassination can be defined as:

Character assassination is an intentional attempt to influence the portrayal or reputation of a particular person, whether living or a historical personage, in such a way as to cause others to develop an extremely negative, unethical or unappealing perception of him or her. By its nature, it involves deliberate exaggeration or manipulation of facts to present an untrue picture of the targeted person...

In practice, character assassination usually consists of the spreading of rumors and deliberate misinformation on topics relating to one's morals, integrity, and reputation.

Also according to Wikipedia, "swiftboating" can be defined as:

Swiftboating is American political jargon for an ad hominem attack against a public figure coordinated by an independent or pseudo-independent group, usually resulting in a benefit to an established political force.

This form of attack is controversial, easily repeatable, and difficult to verify or disprove because it is generally based on personal feelings or recollections...

"Smear train" and other assertions made on the left to describe this conflagration are not so easy to define, so let's focus on whether or not the allegations of "character assassination" and swiftboating" really apply to this case.

Character assassination requires "deliberate exaggeration or manipulation of facts to present an untrue picture of the targeted person," and "usually consists of the spreading of rumors and deliberate misinformation on topics relating to one's morals, integrity, and reputation."

That is clearly not in evidence in this instance; Marcotte has been hoisted on her proverbial petard for her own controversial words, not for the words of others. The only possible claim of manipulation that can be made is that some critics have chosen to publish shorter excerpts of her commentary for the sake of brevity. Her comments, however have not been taken out of context, and a reader disturbed by her excerpted comments will be no less offended if they read the entire post in its entirety. In some instances, the full posts only serves to make Marcott'e comments more appalling to those offended by the excerpts. These comments made by Marcotte reflect her own, true feelings, as written by her own hand. A review of her comments resulted not in character assassination, but character definition. Charges of character assassination are completely false.

What about the charge of "swiftboating?"

The charges against Marcotte and McEwan are neither "difficult to verify or disprove." We have permalinks to what Marcotte haven't erased, and the rest is captured in the Google cache. The greatest damage done, clearly has been from a spotlight being cast on their own freely-given words. These words are, however, clearly based upon their own personal feelings, so one could presumably make the argument that they "swiftboated" themselves.

Other liberal bloggers have complained that Marcotte and McEwan have complained that the rantings on their personal blogs does not indicate in any way how they may perform as part of the Edwards campaign. It is of course true, but that was not the argument they were making when they pilloried Ben Domenech for the plagiarism he commited prior to joining the Washington Post as a blogger.

As a matter of fact, Media Matter's own David Brock stated:

...with each hour bringing new evidence of Domenech's racially charged rhetoric and homophobic bigotry, the time has come for the Post to end its ill-conceived relationship with Domenech. Examples of Domenech's views include:

• In a February 7 post on RedState, Domenech wrote that he believed people should be "pissed" that President Bush attended "the funeral of a Communist" -- referring to the funeral for Coretta Scott King. As you know, labeling the King family "communists" was a favorite tool of the racists who opposed them.
  In another RedState post, Domenech compared "the Judiciary" unfavorably to the Ku Klux Klan.
• In still another RedState comment, Domenech posted without comment an article stating that "[i]t just happens that killing black babies has the happy result of reducing crime" and that "[w]hite racists have reason to be grateful for what is sometimes still called the civil rights leadership" because black leaders "are overwhelmingly in support" of abortion rights.
• In yet another, Domenech wrote that conservative blogger/journalist Andrew Sullivan, who is gay, "needs a woman to give him some stability."

Domenech has also been caught at least once apparently fabricating a quote. A June 20, 2002, Spinsanity.org entry demonstrated that Domenech made up a quote he attributed to Tim Russert in order to defend President Bush.

In a post on RedState.com, Domenech once agreed with a commenter who called Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin "an embarrassment to the saner heads at the paper."

It is time for "saner heads" to prevail. Will The Washington Post honor its history as one of America's most respected news organizations -- or will it stand with Ben Domenech, tacitly endorsing his assault on Coretta Scott King, his offensive suggestion that a gay man "needs a woman," and his fabrication of a quote?

America is watching.

David Brock seemed very concerned about the rhetoric and bigotry of Domenech, even moreso than his plagiarism, if his letter can be believed. He and his fellow liberals were quite against what they construed as hate speech then.

Funny how Brock and other liberals don't seem to have a problem with the incendiary rhetoric and the readily apparent bigotry of two of their own, now.

Update: Edwards is not firing Marcotte and McEwan.

I lack the words to fully express just how devilishly amusing this is to me.

Luckily, Jeff G. captures the essence of this debacle perfectly:

But lost on these Marcotte supporters—who are cheering on the power of the “netroots” to cow a politician into keeping on an ugly and hateful liability—is that Edwards just showed up Marcotte and McEwan as frauds and posturing blowhards, writers who have been pulling the wool over their audiences’ eyes by posting vicious “arguments” they never truly believed. To use the loaded language of establishment feminism—he publicly castrated them—and in so doing, he made fools out of their audiences, to boot.

Further, in doing so, he has shown himself to be nothing more than a calculating political opportunist of the worst sort—one who believes the voting public so daft they might actually buy a statement like the one he just released.

As I wrote yesterday, I donÂ’t care one way or the other, personally, about whether or not Marcotte and McEwan are allowed to keep their josb. ThatÂ’s EdwardsÂ’ call. And from a blogging perspective, I suppose EdwardsÂ’ decision is good news.

But let’s not confuse the effect with the rationale—which is both risible and insulting. Because were it really never Marcotte’s intent to malign anyone’s faith, she probably wouldn’t have dedicated so many hate-filled blog posts to, you know—maligning anyone’s faith.

Of course it was her intent. Just as it was McEwan’s intent. And worst of all, Edwards knows it. That he has pretended to take the two at their word, in an ostentatious gesture of “trust,” is precisley the kind of staged treacle that makes people doubt the sincerity of politicians; and that both Marcotte and McEwan have assured their own personal Patriarch that they’ll behave, now that he’s promoted them to the grownups’ table, is, to put it bluntly, one of the most pathetic public surrenderings of personal integrity I’ve ever seen.

Seriously. We should feel bad for them.

That is, were we to actually believe they meant any of it. Because how this plays out for the netroots is this way: either they are cheering on an ideological sellout, or they are knowingly and happily embracing an opportunistic liar. So. Congrats to them. Once again, theyÂ’ve covered themselves in white hot sticky glory!

There is more, of course, so be sure to read the whole thing.

My take away on this is that Marcotte, McEwan, and Edwards will say or do anything it takes to attempt to preserve their limited relevance. Once the primary season is over, Marcotte's and McEwan's futile efforts will be forgotten, but their willingness to prostitute their principles for a furtive brush with greatness will last far, far longer.

At least Edwards will still have nice hair.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:45 AM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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Curt over at Flopping Aces found this little gem in the comments to William Arkin's blog entry which labeled American military personnel mercenaries:

We know that Kos has issued forth the words "Screw them" in the past when talking about the four private security contractors that were killed in Fallujah in 2004, hung from a bridge, and their bodies burned beyond recognition.

He even claimed to be proud of it... while trying to hide it.

But has Kos now gone so far as to agree with Arkin that all American soldiers are mercenaries, worthy of death?

Somehow I think that statement would be a "bridge too far," even for Kos.

Update: Fraud confirmed. I blame Diebold.

Update: Charles Johnson has a few thoughts on the subject as well.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:07 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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