Intemperate allies for me, but not for thee

February 7, 2007

There’s no official word yet on whether John Edwards’ presidential campaign has fired Pandagon’s Amanda Marcotte and Shakespeare’s Sister’s Melissa McEwan yet. Salon reported that the dismissal has already happened, but Edwards’ spokesperson cautioned Salon against reporting that they have been fired and said, “We will have something to say later.”

Presumably, the internal debate amongst Edwards staffers has been ongoing throughout the day, which in and of itself, is less than encouraging. The debate need not be that hard — the choice is whether to stand by the campaign’s own staffers, or fire them for things they wrote before joining the campaign because some far-right voices have demanded it.

I’ve already done a couple of posts on this, and there are no shortage of perspectives on the story, but I wanted to add that there’s one picture that’s been stuck in my head all day. It’s this one, taken by White House Photo Director Eric Draper, which ran in the NYT in October.
gallagher

I realize this is a point I feel compelled to make from time to time, but it simply amazes me that there are two distinct standards for political associations. High-profile Democrats are supposed to keep their distance from anyone who dares to say anything intemperate, but Republicans have no qualms about maintaining close professional ties to some of the most vitriolic, hate-filled voices in our public discourse.

Indeed, it’s worth remembering that Rush Limbaugh would have been in the above photo, but couldn’t make the meeting. No matter — not long after the WH meeting, and a week after Limbaugh mocked a man for having Parkinson’s, the president sat down with the right-wing talk-show host for an interview.

As for the gang in the photo, Nico did a nice job explaining at the time exactly how “mainstream” the president’s friends are.

* Sean Hannity (“[M]aking sure Nancy Pelosi doesn’t become the [House] speaker” is “worth … dying for“)

* Neal Boortz (Islam is a “deadly virus“)

* Laura Ingraham (Sens. Biden and Boxer are “on the side of” Kim Jong-Il)

* Mike Gallagher (Gore and Hitler “brilliantly put together side by side” in campaign video) [He later called on the government to “round up” several left-leaning voices, including Keith Olbermann, label them “traitors,” and have them sent to “detention camps.”]

* Michael Medved (“[T]he subject of my conversation with the president of the United States” was that Islam has “a special violence problem.”)

Amanda and Melissa find themselves today with their jobs on the line because some conservatives were offended by a handful of their blog posts, written long before they had any association with any campaign. In the meantime, on the other side of the aisle, there is literally nothing a right-right hate-monger can say to reach pariah status in American society.

Ann Coulter can condemn 9/11 widows, but she’s still in the conservative mainstream. [tag]Bill O’Reilly[/tag] suggested that it’d be fine with him if [tag]al Qaeda[/tag] attacked a major American city, but he suffered no consequences. In 2001, just 48 hours after 9/11, [tag]Jerry Falwell[/tag] said liberal Americans were to blame for the attacks and said the nation “deserved” the terrorism, but Republicans are still reaching out to him for political support.

I don’t know what the Edwards campaign is going to end up doing, but the fact that this is even open to debate suggests the double standard that exists isn’t going anywhere for a while.

Don’t forget Dinesh!

All good points CB.

  • And don’t forget that the President’s top adviser, Dick Cheney, goes around telling senators to their faces to go fuck themselves.

    There’s really almost no way to be less temperate than that without shooting someone in the face.

  • Seems to me there has always been a double standard:

    The right can say anything racist, bigoted, false and hateful, and that’s okay. Whether it’s the examples you provided, or O’Reilly saying that a kidnapped child liked the situation, or Malkin arguing for putting all brown people in camps, they do it all … the … time.

    But if anyone from the left drops an f-bomb in a post that is otherwise poignant and truthful, then OH NO!!! LOOK HOW VULGAR THESE PEOPLE ARE!!

    It really is an amazing — if nauseating — dynamic.

    Shame on Edwards if his campaign wusses out.

  • Did Edwards think that any old blogger(s) would do just for the symbolic value of having a Net presence on the staff? Was he completely unaware of what they had written and where they stood on issues? I doubt that. So if this plays out and the women are gone, then Edwards is in solid “deer in the headlights” territory and he just got his ass run over. And he’ll stay run over.

  • Neal Boortz (Islam is a “deadly virus“)

    Don’t forget this Boortz gem:

    … I believe that the main reason the execution of Tookie Williams won’t be executed is because Schwarzenegger knows full well that as soon as Tookie’s death is announced there will be riots in South Central Los Angeles and elsewhere…. There are thugs just waiting for an excuse … not a reason, an excuse. The rioting, of course, will lead to wide scale looting. There are a lot of aspiring rappers and NBA superstars who could really use a nice flat-screen television right now.

  • This is not a hard question. This is, “Are you going to let reactionary freaks tell you how to run your campaign?”

    Luckily, anyone who can’t pass this test a year before the primaries isn’t in danger of *winning* the primaries, as Joe Lieberman found out in 2004 (though, obviously, for different reasons).

  • If Edwards caves TO PEOPLE WHO WONT EVEN VOTE FOR HIM

    He can forget getting any support from LW blogsphere EVER again….

    Its time for Edwards to step in and defend these two…b/c he is only feeding and empowering the RW “media” by listening to their supposed objections…..

  • I’m not sure how a leftwing blogger can work for a mainstream candidate without violating the blogger’s standards.

  • Doesn’t the boyish-looking dunderhead realize that if he cans these two women, one Democratic rival with nothing to lose (Joe Biden would be PERFECT) will immediately hire them?
    Honestly, why not just wear a signboard saying “I’m a gutless loser” while campaigning?

  • I realize this is a point I feel compelled to make from time to time, but it simply amazes me that there are two distinct standards for political associations.

    It’s simple: IOKIYAR (It’s OK If You’re a Republican).

    What simple amazes me is that anyone listens to assholes like Donahue and Malkin, for pity’s sake, trying to dictate the bounds of civil discourse, without absolutely pissing themselves with laughter.

  • The NY Times does a real hit-job at
    http://snipurl.com/19mi2

    They mention all the usual a-holes (note to future candidates who might hire me I said a-hole, I didn’t say asshole) and each of those people mentioned could be hoist on any number of outrageous posts and positions they have taken if the writer had chosen to not pretend they were mainstream pundits.

  • I haven’t seen anyone mention that these are both young women, not middle-aged white guys. Does that factor into this situation at all?

  • I notice that Pelosi is speaker and Hannity is still living. What a shame he didn’t have the courage of his convictions.

  • No doubt there is a double standard, and until the left crawls into the sewer of hypocrisy that so many on the right live in, it’s going to stay that way.

    Yes, Coulter, O’Reily, et. al., have said or written far worse than Marcotte and McEwan. Until they’re endorsed by a political figure, all we have is disgusting behavior, freedom of speech and soapbox from which to express it.

    That changes when Bush entertains people like those pictured above. Inviting them to the WH — and not others — represents an endorsement of who they are, what they say and the tactics they use. I don’t see why Edward’s hiring Marcotte and McEwan can be interpreted as any less.

    Now, it happens that Dubya is himself so unethical that he sees nothing wrong with the partisan smears, half lies and flat-out, made-up crap put forth by Hannity,et. al.. He does it himself and, insulated by his self-righteous arrogance, he doesn’t care what anyone else thinks. It’s part of his sickness.

    Edwards is another matter. He may be a politician, but he isn’t a sociopath and I see no reason he should behave like one — even if he could. If he’s to keep any integrity in the public eye, these two bloggers have to go. Otherwise, he becomes what he’s running against.

    Obviously, he should have looked a bit more closely into the writings of those he hired. Now, the best he can do is say “my bad” and move on. I don’t think this has to be fatal.

  • There is no double standard. There are two standards. Democrats are supposed to take the moral high ground. Republicans thrive on hate, bashing women, black, hispanics, muslims, catholics, gays and anyone else it suits them too.

    Indeed the big question for 2008 is, Who will be their new nigger? 2006 has Mexicans, 2004 had gays, 2002 had “terrorists,” 1994-2000 had liberals, going all way back to to his racist Southern Strategy.

  • Nixon’s strategy. I can’t remember who Reagan demonized as threatening American values, destroying American culture. Probably the liberal commies.

  • I think the right has paid a price for associating itself with far-right hatred: it make liberals seem more reasonable by comparison. The Democrats have become the voice of reason and moderation in the minds of many Americans.

    If the GOP wants to embrace such extremists, let them. It will only hurt them in the long run.

  • This really is a shame.

    Those two not only framed Edwards with candor, they elequently showcased the mindset behind today’s entire Democrat party.

    I hope he has a change of heart.

  • Edwards doing this, and Edwards coming out against gay marriage because he was raised a southern bigot (though he claims to have gotten away from that) are two of the issues – among others – that mean I won’t be voting for him in our primary, and wouldn’t vote for him in the general election. You may as well have an identifiable enemy, rather than an “ally” with a nice thin stiletto and a history of using it when you don’t expect it.

    No more goddamn Southern dipshits!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • One of the big unwritten commandments of working on a political campaign is “Don’t become the story”. The more the press spends its time reporting on John Edwards’ bloggers rather than Edwards himself, the more than campaign is forced off-message and into defensive rather that offensive mode. I would like to think that the Edwards campaign was aware of this possibility when they hired Amanda and that they were willing to take the heat, although it is also possible they just didn’t realize how much negative emotion Amanda would stir up.

    Edwards needs to get past this as quickly as possible, but unfortunately both of his choices right now are bad ones. Dumping Amanda = caving to the wingnuts. Standing up for Amanda = giving the wingnuts lots of anti-Edwards campaign fodder. I am glad I don’t have to make that call. But then, I wouldn’t have hired her for that job in the first place.

    The Machiavellian part of me wonders if the Edwards campaign realized they might not be able to keep both women, and thus hired Melissa knowing that she might need to step in and fill Amanda’s job as well as the one she was hired for.

  • This is a small victory for civil discourse. It’s fine to absolutely slam the other side, and use a take-no-prisoners attitude. But it’s so much more effective when you do so refraining from the use of vulgarities and curse words.

    Using proper language is simply a sign of respect for one’s audience, and indeed for one’s targets. There’s no reason to publicly demonstrate lack of respect for one’s political adversaries using vulgarities. It may well be that you don’t have respect for them, but they’re still human beings, and human beings possess innate dignity. It simply looks churlish to abandon the basic courtesies of civil discourse. After all, how much effort does it take to stifle the urge to cuss? Which is why the Edwards campaign simply had to get rid of this loser. If she’s so inarticulate that she can’t hit her targets without the use of effbombs, why would Edwards want her on his payroll in the first place?

  • By the way, who in their right mind doesn’t think Islam has “a special violence problem.”?

  • Typical Rep playbook =
    1) Attack the messenger to avoid dealing with messages.
    2) The GOLDILOCKS strategy of Dems are always too weak/strident but Repubs are just right.
    3) Treat every Dem traffic ticket as a felony and every Rep felony as a traffic ticket.

    So Dems are too weak as they bring a knife to a gun fight but Dems are too strident when they even try to pack a 22.

    Dem Playbook = No easy targets for Reps.
    Investigate before hiring so you can stick with your choices (Edwards)
    Choose words with care (Biden)
    Push back against Repub attacks and MSM echo chamber chatter.

  • Not knowing whether Edwards has pulled the plug on his pro bloggers, a face-saving exit out of this mess does exist. Edwards should publicly say that while he had no control over the activities of the employees of his campaign staff prior to their being hired, he will expect the highest standards of ethical conduct from all of his campaign staff once they are on board. Provide a list of pertinent but broad ethical standards that he expects his staff to uphold and then challenge other campaigns to follow suit.

  • I live in NC were Edwards the chicken fire lawyer hails from and I want to thank him for making up my mind for ’08 with his latest bad decision. I had given him credit for being the first to come out and admit voting for Shrub’s War in Iraq was a mistake. However, his courting of AIPAC for campaign contributions like Billary and this bad decision have shown me that he is a spineless ambulance chaser that will suck up to anyone that improves his chances of reaching the White House. We don’t need a Dem version of McCain or someone like Billary that doesn’t have a point of view until the public opinion polls come back. The Dems need someone with conviction to speak out against the mentally challenged Presidunce with an IQ of 81 that has held our country hostage since 2000 and the Republican hacks that will run in ’08 like Brownstain(f__king idiot actually credits himself for gettin Alito on the Supreme Court). I don’t have any knowledge about Marcotte, but about a year and a half ago, Melissa McEwan posted an article on Alternet expressing outrage over the great difference in the pay of prize money to the male tennis players and the female tennis players at the major tournaments. I posted the third comment to the article to the effect that the women should receive the same amount of money when they start playing 5 set matches like the men instead of 3 sets. The entire article was removed. I have read many of her articles since and usually agree with her and I respect her for speaking her mind. From what I have read of McEwan’s articles since, I would vote for her for president before Billary or Edwards. Another bad decision Edwards. Old habits die hard. As another poster pointed out, Edwards is worried about people that won’t ever vote for him anyway. Grow some balls, Edwards, and I don’t mean tennis balls.

  • This is small potatoes compared to what’ll be coming later in the campaign. If Edwards caves on this, and lets hateful bigots dictate who he hires, there’s no hope. I’m disappointed. We need someone with a spine–a fighter.

    He immediately should have gone on tv to laugh and mock Donohue and the others, using their own words against them. There are tons of appalling quotes from them to choose from.

  • LMAO, if you think swearing makes you a bad person, shut up now because nobody born after 1971 wants to hear it. Some of you want to fight with our hands behind our backs, because you think it’s noble. Get. Out. Of. Politics. What you want isn’t noble, it’s selfish. Not fighting back, not using their own techniques against them, not backing our own to the highest degree has real consequences in the real world. People will die hungry if we don’t win. People won’t get decent educations if we won’t win. More wars will be started and more people will die. IF we look weak, we will lose. IF we won’t protect ourselves, nobody will believe we will protect them. Get that through your thick, addled skulls. All of that is a lot more important than you feeling better about yourselves.

  • There’s no double standard. None of the people in the picture are working for presidential campaigns. They are radio talk show hosts paid to be provocative. It would be a problem if they went to work for a campaign.

    And if you don’t think Muslims blowing themselves up, intending to kill as many civilians as possible because they think they’ll get a better place in Heaven is “a special violence problem,” then you must be delusional.

    I know you have to defend Amanda and Melissa at all costs because God knows if Charles Johnson had gone to work on a conservative presidential campaign you would have been tarring the candidate with his views. Try a little less hypocrisy.

  • Forgive me for not keeping up, but what exactly did Marcotte and McEwen write that got Donahue so worked up?

    Also, third paragraph needs fixing. Should be “there is no shortage of perspectives.”

  • I know you have to defend Amanda and Melissa at all costs because God knows if Charles Johnson had gone to work on a conservative presidential campaign you would have been tarring the candidate with his views. Try a little less hypocrisy.

    Of course we would have. And the candidate would have shrugged it off and there would have been a collective yawn from the media. That’s what a double standard looks like.

  • There’s no double standard. None of the people in the picture are working for presidential campaigns.

    So getting face time with the president in order to discuss policy and meida strategy doesn’t count as “working” for a politician?

    All of this just shows that hypocrisy is present much, much, MUCH more on the right — for them, it seems its okay to say anything hateful, bigoted, and intolerant, just so long as you’re nice about it.

    Of course, this wouldn’t even be an issue if anyone on the right understood a little thing called “sarcasm,” for which all of the “examples” of hatred from Marcotte qualify. It would also be nice if the selections were given in context, rather than pulled out of a 1,000-word post.

    But, you know, that wouldn’t gin up nearly enough contraversy about the person, rather than anything of substance (a typical GOP tactic).

  • Yes, Virginia, there is a double standard, and Edwards is a boob for firing the two bloggers. The fire-breathing, hate-speech of the right wingnuts is acceptable because they have made it mainstream. It is exasperating because progressives don’t know how to fight back, and the mainstream media are too stupid to be fair and balanced.

  • There’s no double standard because the talk show hosts you hate don’t work for political campaigns. They aren’t paid staffers. They say what they want (and it isn’t monolithic, btw.

    And it is hilarious that anybody defending Amanda “pro-lifers want to outlaw abortion so there will be more white babies for adoption” Marcotte would accuse anybody of hate speech.

  • Edwards’ response was disappointing. Exactly the kind of wimp-out that makes Dems look like losers. He scolds his bloggers but he keeps them. He should keep them, but the scold makes him look like a flip-flopper — exactly what the righties wanted. He should have said something like: “I don’t agree with everything they write, and you don’t have to either. But I’ve never taken advice from anti-Semites like Donohue, and I’m not going to start now. If you really want to be offended, read his stuff. And his bigot friends’. ”

    It would have been an “I paid for this microphone” moment, for those of us old enough to remember.

  • Edwards’ response was disappointing. He made a mistake. He hired two bloggers without even the most cursory check on the sorts of things they write. If he’d seen the quotes first, he never would have hired them, and everyone knows it.

    Can I repeat that widely-overlooked point? If he’d seen the quotes first, he never would have hired them. No matter who pointed out the quotes. The idea that the problem here is that the Malkins of the world were the ones pointing it out is a non-sequitur. If he’d seen the quotes first, he never would have hired them. No matter who pointed out the quotes.

    So he gets called on it, and what does he do? He stonewalls. Refuses to admit it was a mistake. Digs the hole deeper by refusing to admit the mistake *even though officially they hadn’t yet been hired*.

    You know what would be fun? Get the left-wing blog-o-sphere to declare that unless Edwards appears on stage wearing a tutu and purple sunglasses his campaign will be null and void and nobody will support him and the Malkins and Donohues of the world will have won. Or something like that. Might as well try to find the boundary of his spinelessness now.

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