Kudos To Terry Moran
Regarding the Edwards ‘blogger’ flap, Moran (yes, Terry Moran!) is, well, astoundingly on target, in an article entitled, “Does John Edwards Condone Hate Speech?“:
A bit of a tempest is brewing over the strident and profanity-laced writings of John Edwards’ official campaign “blogmaster,” Amanda Marcotte. She joined the Edwards campaign last week, and she’s already gotten a lot of attention.
At issue are Marcotte’s comments on her own blog, Pandagon (http://www.pandagon.net/), which has staked out a prominent place in the left-wing blogosphere. It’s pretty strong stuff; her comments about other people’s faiths could well be construed as hate speech.
Questions: What, if anything, does it tell us about Edwards that he’s joined up with this blogger? Is Edwards’ association with a person who has written these things a legitimate issue for voters, as they wonder–among other things–whom he might appoint to high office if he’s elected? If a Republican candidate teamed up with a right-wing blogger who spewed this kind of venom, how would people react? Is the mere raising of this issue a kind of underhanded censorship, a way of ruling out of bounds some kinds of opinion? Are we all just going to have to get used to a more rough-and-tumble, profane, and even hate-filled public arena in the age of the blogosphere?
The answer to that last one: no, we won’t settle for it. Candidates will have to learn that there are different standards of professionalism in the world of blogs, just as there are good journalists and hacks. And they’ll have to do their due diligence, that’s all…
Moran’s column is right-wing pandering at best; pure idiocy at worst.
To begin with, one of his questions (If a Republican candidate teamed up with a right-wing blogger who spewed this kind of venom, how would people react?) has been pretty definitively answered, and in the Glenn Greenwald post you referenced earlier, no less. How would people react? It’s been a whimper at best.
This guilt-by-association witch hunt is ridiculous. What’s next? A picture of Edwards shaking hands at a campaign event with somebody whose grandfather was a member of the KKK, proving that Edwards condones lynching black people? Gimme a damn break. This is a non-story, and I’m surprised to see you giving it legs.
Apparently we’re sacrificing the boundaries of sanity in the name of civility. Now Marcottegate is on par with Stormfront.
So I guess we pinkos are free to go back to equating Guantanamo Bay with the Gulag Archipelago. As long as we don’t say the F word. And then you wingnuts can compare the Scotsboro Boys to the Duke Boys. And Pearl Harbor. Or something.
And meanwhile we can all dress up transparently vicious, partisan jihads as noble causes.
Statements have consequences. Everyone is free to say any stupid thing they want. When they do so in public, it becomes a matter of open debate.
That’s what I’m doing here, guys, if you haven’t noticed. I don’t have the power to fire the two – I’m just expressing the belief that they will be…
Is that supposed to be sarcastic?
“Statements have consequences, but my casual [implicit, natch, so I can deny it later] endorsement of diluting the meaning of ‘hate speech’ to mean ‘bitchy blogger’ is just farting in the wind.
And when I say we won’t settle for it, I mean…they.”
No, I mean we, as a society…we’re a better country than that – we don’t have to staff our campaigns with people who spout out crap like that for the public record. Vetting, Andy…every company worth its salt does it, and candidates have to do it, too…even with bloggers…
Exactly, Mark. The reason this is news is not because a couple of anonymous bloggers shot off their mouths and decided to impress their buddies with how profane and sacrilegious they could be. It’s news because they’ve been hired by a presidential campaign. They’ve been hired by a man who presumably wants to attract votes.
Now making crass ejaculation humor about what many voters consider a sacred doctrine doesn’t seem the smartest way to go about gaining votes. Nor does assuming the reasonable doubt many people have about the Duke case is purely the result of violent, sex-obsessed racism.
You can stamp your feet and insist no one should pay attention, or say that McCain’s blogger is just as bad, or develop whatever slippery-slope strawman argument you want, but voters have a way of deciding what’s important to them. If these two get canned, it’s not because the evil right wingers pulled a dirty trick; it’s because John Edwards has decided that kind of talk is a liability to a professional campaign.
And the fact that Marcotte made an effort to hide the post that started the recent fuss, that makes it pretty clear to me she recognizes that fact, too.
See, this is what drives me crazy about these “civility” quests. Everyone starts dancing around the Broder’s Ballroom, spouting off non-sequiturs about how dirty words are fouling the public square, while dilligently avoiding acknowledging how absurd it all is.
There’s a reasonable and rational case to be made that Edwards should’ve stayed 800 miles away from Austin when recruiting a blogger. One might question, however, why we haven’t had a plethora of stories about campaign staffers’ temperament before Marcotte arrived on the scene. Most staffers I’ve met- including some of the candidates’ primary public faces – are stone cold degenerates. I digress.
What’s crazy is the doublethink required to denounce Marcotte for hateful rhetoric – using hateful rhetoric. That Scotsboro Boys analogy – and now this “could well be construed as hate speech” Colbertism are way beyond the pale of “civilized discourse.” It doesn’t approach “hate speech” in and of itself, but one can’t even measure it using the vulgarity scale.
Bottom line. If you think you can make a case that Marcotte used hate speech, please go ahead. But if you really believe this is just about professionalism, then I think you’re out of line joining in this circus.
for hateful rhetoric See? You’ve got me splitting hairs now. Sheesh.