Fired and Then Unfired
By Erick Posted in Blogosphere — Comments (39) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
The John Edwards campaign, having done a terrible job of vetting his blog hires, fired them when it was discovered that they were vulgar, immature, and crude consistently throughout their blogs. From referring to evangelicals as "christofascists" to being way more obsessed with uteruses than pretty much anything else, these are not the bloggers that middle America can really relate to. Of course, John lives in multi-million dollar mansions, so it's not like he really relates to middle America either, which may explain why he now says he has not fired them, but disagrees with the way they have blogged -- confusing considering he hired them for the way they blogged.
While Ms. Marcotte released a statement today saying, hilariously,
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.
one wonders how she thinks the average middle American soccer mom wouldn't be offended by this:
The rest is below the fold, given it's nature.
if you love your body, you will allow a man to beat it mercilessly without calling the cops, because everyone knows the only people who are victims of domestic violence are men who bruise their knuckles beating women.
or this:
I'm a hot, moist, inviting t**t. Warm, wet, inviting. But not to you or your friends. Even if I were single, these nubile thighs do not wrap around the hips of Republicans. You can f*** yourselves or the dry t**ts of the self-hating misogynists who will allow you tiny p***s to penetrate them. Have fun! Um, the wounds you get from rubbing you un-lubricated d*** repeatedly into your heartless, soulless woman–iodine is your best friend, my be-scarred friend.
or this:
I will f*** without making children day in and out and you will know it and you won’t be able to stop it. Toss and turn, you mean, jealous motherf******. I’m not going to be “punished” with babies. Which makes all your efforts a failure. Some non-procreating women escaped. So give up now. You’ll never catch all of us. Give up now.
Thank you Mr. Edwards for keeping this alive!
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Fired and Then Unfired 39 Comments (0 topical, 39 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
having seen the photos with my own eyes Marcotte has a hyper-inflated opinion of her nubile-ness and more that likely the rest of the adjectives in her first sentence in that paragraph represent valid grounds for a Federal Trade Commission complaint.
The vast majority of people who interact with the Edwards campaign aren't going to go look up the history of the bloggers who work for them.
The MSM certainly isn't going to keep this as an issue for the next two years.
The only people who will be affected - or care - about this are right- and left- wing net users, who for the most part either already hated Edwards or already loved him.
Keeping the bloggers on is a win-win for Edwards. Noone will care about this at all in a week, and he won support from the netroots for seeming to side with one of their own - an important achievement, even if it was hollow and calculated.
Former Senator Edwards is now entwining himself completely with the Left-blogosphere. You hit one, you hit the other.
Do I really need to finish this thought? Do I really?
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.
That it used to be. The left blogosphere didn't do as bad this last cycle as before(that would have been a difficult accomplishment, given).
If the Iraq war doesn't improve in the next year, it will be all you hear about, and the left blogosphere will claim they've been in front of this issue the whole time. Their importance in the eyes of the MSM will only go up, because they aren't interested in factual arguments but gotcha journalism, which the left excels at producing - better ratings.
Hard to see how this will act as a negative for Edwards in the long run.
You don't think the comments they made about Catholicism, as one lone example, will act as a negative?
I do.
Whatever else you want to say about issues -- be they Iraq or otherwise -- he's still going to need to appeal to Christians...especially Catholics. And when this chick's comments about the Virgin Mary get a wider audience, get out of the way.
I don't think this serves as a negative for Edwards today. Nobody's paying attention. But if and when they do start paying attention to him, this will look awful.
I think that every candidate in this race has people working for him or her who have items in their past which can be attacked. Terry Mac for Hillary? McCain has some issues with this as well.
I don't think that the majority of people, even Christian voters, are going to give a fig about this. The race is going to be bloody on all sides; when Hill and Obama bring out the knives next spring it's going to get ugly.
Unless you think that this issue is going to carry a lot of weight in the general election - when all signs point to Iraq still being the defining issue of the day - then how is it a problem for Edwards? I doubt there are a ton of liberal Catholics who are going to change their vote for him based on this alone.
And forget Iraq, too. Because, frankly, Edwards isn't going to stand out from the likes of, particularly, Obama. Heck, Obama can say, correctly, that he opposed the war from the start and that his two chief opponents voted for it.
This is about the primary. And you can bet your bottom dollar that Hillary and Obama, if they sense a threat from Edwards, will remind voters of what these Edwards aides wrote.
Do I think it will offend some voters enough into voting against him? Yes, I do. But I think the bigger issue, and the one that his opponents will use against him, is his judgment in vetting and hiring aides.
Frankly, what this looks to me like is simple laziness. I think, had Edwards or his chief aides known that these bloggers had written such stuff, they'd never have been hired.
It's not a major issue now because, as you say, the only people paying any attention are full-time political-types anyway. And none of us are going to have our opinions changed by such comments.
But when the rubber meets the road in campaign season, and more people start paying attention who don't follow the intricacies of the political circus on a daily basis get wind of these things, the pressure will be intense for Edwards to answer for this association.
And he's not going to fall on his sword for a couple of bloggers.
I think, for now, it makes more sense to keep them on...because he can't afford to tick off the left blogosphere. But, once worlds collide and the reality of needing to convince regular joes to vote for him gets closer, these two gals will be history.
Count on it.
The damage has been done. Now he has bowed and kissed the netroot's collective posterior. The question is will the damage be offset by their support.
To anyone that knows the story it speaks poorly of edwards. So wait till after the primaries and get the story out.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
It's not the MSM that Edwards needs to worry about. It's his opponents -- who can, with a single comment, drive the MSM.
If Edwards shows any signs of life as a candidate -- which I doubt strongly that he will, BTW -- every one of his opponents will tar him with this. And it ain't gonna play well in Dubuque.
At first, I was surprised to learn that he decided to keep them on. But then I remembered that this is the same guy who blasted Wal-Mart on one side of town after dispatching an aide to Wal-Mart on the other side of town to ask a favor for the Senator. It's also the guy who launched his campaign in devastated New Orleans and then flew back to the comfort of his new 28,000 square foot estate.
He's just not that bright. He doesn't think too much about how things look to other people seeing them -- either that, or he doesn't care. Either way, this is not some savvy move. It's boneheaded.
...I'd be all over Edwards with this.
After all, one of the themes of his campaign is a return to civility or some such thing. What better way to show how the current system is broken than to point out this situation -- not only the fact that they were hired, but retained after the offending comments were uncovered.
Granted, he'll only do that if he feels like Edwards has a chance to win Iowa (which he does, if recent polls are any indication). He won't want to offend the nutroots by castigating not only one of their own but their general MO if he doesn't have to. But Iowa's a huge prize and Edwards has just handed the other candidates a huge club to use against them any time they see fit.
As I say, I think the man's simply stupid.
The MSM certainly isn't going to keep this as an issue for the next two years.
No, but hopefully mean nasty GOP operatives will, by publicizing some of her more viciously anti-Catholic, four-letter word-laden screeds, at just the opportune moment (say, three days before the Iowa caucus).
Republicans would wait till a week before the general election.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
I will f*** without making children day in and out and you will know it and you won’t be able to stop it. Toss and turn, you mean, jealous motherf******. I’m not going to be “punished” with babies. Which makes all your efforts a failure. Some non-procreating women escaped. So give up now. You’ll never catch all of us. Give up now.
Give up now, when we can wait for the inexorable demographic trend abortion creates to turn the tide our way?
Run like Reagan!
is that Marcotte apparently has no plans of making a donation to the gene pool.
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
If he wants to hire Billy Joel to be his driver, that's fine too.
....is getting off easy, in my opinion. Every focuses on Marcotte, but McEwan is easily as nuts. Viz.:
"I love the word c---. I use it like it's going out of style, mostly when referring to my own or talking to one of my Brits (to whom the word is about as alarming as oatmeal). I love it specifically because it has so much power in America. I love it when some dude calls me a c--- intending to deliver the ultimate insult, and I can effortlessly take the wind out of his sails by replying, 'F------ right I am. Queen C--- of F--- Mountain, and don’t you forget it, son.'"
Edited for content, of course. And then there's her piece on how she hates the demeanor of American military officers. Suffice it to say, more where that came from.
My question is: can we now state that John Edwards actually employs Queen C--- of F--- Mountain?
We are but warriors for the working-day.
LOL.
John Edwards is such a transparent lightweight, he almost makes Obama seem qualified.
--
"We can all do our part to save the planet by dying." - R.E. Finch
Queen C--- of F--- Mountain? I think not.
Maid C--- of F--- Ant Hill? Perhaps. Getting closer, at least.
One usually has to journey to Mexican bordellos, or Boston, to find that sort of unattractive in a woman.
-------------
So libs, how's that Congressional Resolution to end The War™ coming along?
Of course, John lives in multi-million dollar mansions, so it's not like he really relates to middle America either...
Is this really how we can tell?
...is that in Leftist Democrat mythology, poverty (and wealth) are static conditions, where people exist based on "privilege," and never move up, or down. But to the Republican mind, a big mansion might just be a glimpse at their own future, if they work hard at it. So it's a chance to take a few architectural design notes. "I'll use nicer windows, when I build mine."
"I won't have a cr@ppy, disjointed, ugly walkway in between my house and gym."
Two thirds of the world is covered by water, the other third is covered by Champ Bailey
If he's not smart enough to run a campaign, how can he run the country? He should hire someone who knows how to vet people, and cut his losses on these two. If it ever becomes Edward vs Hillary, she will make sure every Catholic voter in the country knows about this.
to keep the left-wing blogosphere.
Man alive, I even gave him somewhat of the benefit of the doubt that this was due to poor vetting or misplaced non-chalance. The rehiring firmly entwines Edwards with these two, and his race for vice president (that's what it was, too) is toast. His Democratic primary opponents, let alone Republcians, will throw this up in his face after they check on their own e staffers.
Stick a fork in Edwards, he's done in his bid for veep.
___________________
If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"...
Senior Writer
for a paid road trip.
He is not a serious candidate for anything except king of the absurd.
If her comments were only supposed to be funny - then how come nobody is laughing?
What will Edwards say if they post something like this in the future since they are working for him now?
Not what the pretenderrs to the throne of F Mountain have written in the past, and not even what they tried to pretend not to have written (by deleting it). The point is what they will write in the future.
A leopard can change its spots faster than a person can learn to write well after years spent practicing otherwise.
The Academy: researching the Illiberal Arts
We were never allowed to use the term broad to describe ladies. But I think my mother was never exposed to broads like this or she wouldn't have made that rule.
I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful 100 percent.
we talked like that and thought it funny for a chick..maybe not the C-word but certainly the F-bomb. I heard a girl say one day, "I'm a f----- hippie chick and I f--- anyone I want, when I want, where I want.."
But jeez, we were all 18 and that was X+10-y years ago. How nauseating to see this and all sorts of other detritus still floating around, like so many other noxious fumes from the Sixties.
From The Politico...
By: Ben Smith
February 8, 2007 06:39 PM ESTAs the flap over alleged anti-Catholic writings by two John Edwards campaign bloggers devolves into a shouting match between conservative religious voices and liberal bloggers, some members of the "religious left" say they feel – again – shoved to the margins of the Democratic Party.
"We're completely invisible to this debate," said Eduardo Penalver, a Cornell University law professor who writes for the liberal Catholic journal Commonweal. He said he was dissatisfied with the Edwards campaign's response. "As a constituency, the Christian left isn't taken all that seriously," Penalver said.
~~snip~~
Thursday, the campaign issued a statement from Edwards saying that he had been personally offended by the remarks and that the bloggers "have both assured me that it was never their intention to malign anyone's faith, and I take them at their word."
The campaign also sent out semi-apologetic statements from each blogger saying she was sorry if anyone was offended.
And so religious liberals find themselves in a quandary. They have no interest in associating with the likes of William Donohue, the Catholic League president who is closely aligned with the GOP and led the charge against Edwards' aides. Donohue said Thursday he would take out newspaper advertisements attacking Edwards as anti-Catholic. But religious liberals also think Edwards' aides merit more than a slap on the wrist.
“I thought his explanation was not satisfying," said Cornell's Penalver. "It's obvious that they did mean to give offense."
"You imagine a similar kind of comment directed at the Jewish community or at the gay community – something at this level of intentional offensiveness -- and I have a hard time believing it gets resolved in the same way," he said.
Heh. What a tangled web we weave...
___________________
If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"...
Senior Writer
Then I would expect some real action.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
So Edwards is keeping them on? Wow.
His candidacy is finished before it even began -- particularly considering the fact that the MSM has been covering it. What a stupid decision on his part.
All in all, it really doesn't matter. Edwards is a second tier candidate.