Informed Speculation

Mary Eberstadt in the Wall Street Journal:

Heavens, it’s getting crowded in the pews these days–at least with Democratic presidential candidates. Here is Sen. Barack Obama in California’s Saddleback pulpit at the invitation of mega-selling pastor Rick Warren. There is Sen. Hillary Clinton with downcast eyes in Newsweek, praying before the cameras in New York’s Riverside Church. And there preaches John Edwards, also in Riverside Church, weaving his personal faith into everything from AIDS to the minimum wage. Clearly the push is on to show that, for now anyway, the Democratic hopefuls are just plain folks in the religion department.

All the more reason to plumb the curious episode of Amanda Marcotte, that blogger for the Edwards campaign who resigned on Monday and was followed out the door Tuesday by another technical consultant, Melissa McEwan. Both quit thanks to circulation by conservatives of some of these former staffers’ Internet musings. That is to say, in Ms. Marcotte’s case especially: scatological Catholic-baiting rants about “theocracy” marked by leering references to the pope and liberal use of the F-word.

So far, so unremarkable. Just being a bilious feminist with a potty mouth doesn’t much distinguish one in the blogosphere these days. What does matter is something else: We have here a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern moment, in which the fate of bit players becomes emblematic of a larger drama.

For what the blogger tempest really illuminates is a fact that could come to haunt the Democrats as they vie for national office: namely, that their past few wilderness years have also been boom years for the church-loathing liberal/left punditry. As a result, anti-Christian invective now graces (or disgraces) many of the books, magazines, Web sites and blogs to which liberals, including the Democratic elite, habitually look for ideas. One motto of this cottage industry is that the most serious threat to the American republic can be found in, no, not those religious fundamentalists, the ones that first leap to mind after 9/11; but, incredibly, certain other believers–our nation’s Christians.

Duncan (World’s Laziest Blogger) Black:

…I find it really puzzling when people accuse me of being hostile to religion. I’m hostile to the notion that religion should occupy such a privileged place in our discourse. I’m hostile to plenty of beliefs which are associated with religion in this country, and I’m certainly hostile to plenty of self-styled religious leaders. But religious belief and practice doesn’t bother me at all.

Not bad…but here’s Kos:

Republicans have claimed god[sic] as their own and perverted religious texts to justify some of the most divisive and hateful policies and discourse in our politics today. And while Corporate Cons, Neocons, and Paleocons have tolerated the Theocons in order to tap into their activist network (none of those other conservative factions have significant boots to help them win elections), fact is it’s created an ugly party that is unelectable in entire regions of the country. No one likes to have their morality dictated by others. And that doesn’t just mean the Religious Right, but those on our side as well.

No hostility there! (And is there a more petulant, arrogant blogger in the whole of the world? I sincerely doubt it)…