Don’t forget, Edwards lost to Kerry, who was the ultimate cypher-candidate in 2004.

I agree with Iconic Midwest at the top: by hiring bloggers who are way outside of the mainstream (and are offensive about it), and then tamely accepting faux-apologies, Sen. Edwards has shown that he does not have the judgement necessary to make decisions about staffing. As that’s one of the primary jobs of the US President, he’s thus shown himself unfit, and he could do us all a favor by dropping out now.

Actually this is funny in one way only.

A person makes a obviously insulting remark concerning those who believe in Jesus Christ, and the Catholics decide it’s directed at them.

Why leave out the Southern Baptists, Espiscopalians, Methodists, etc?

I don’t want to put any ideas in the heads of folks, but do you sense a bit of Catholic as Superior Christians at play here?

You know, I provided a link for a reason. Click on the link and it makes it clear Marcotte’s remarks were part of an anti-Catholic rant.

Although I agree with you that Amanda is probably an equal opportunity bigot.

Kim,
Thanks for the point of agreement that the type of criticism meted out by Marcotte is inappropriate. Not, of course, that she shouldn’t be allowed to say it, but that she shouldn’t say it, and if she chooses to do so, that reasonable people should then say that her remarks are offensive and not worthy of being taken seriously.

There is alot worse than these two women.

Sure, and there are worse things to contract than cancer.

Here is a nice bit on her take of the Duke rape fraud :

Published by Amanda Marcotte April 10th, 2006
According to the attorneys for the defense of the Duke gang rape case, there’s no DNA evidence linking any of the lacrosse team to the crime. That seems to be pretty cut and dry, there, though I’m suspicious of defense claims that even if condoms were used, there would be DNA evidence–that’s typical trying-in-the-press lawyerly claims. However it goes, I expect that the lack of DNA evidence alongside the huge privilege gap between alleged rapists and the alleged victim will now result in the termination of this case. This is not to say that I think the alleged victim is lying, though there’s of course the remote chance of that. But there probably isn’t going to be enough evidence now to prove it either way.

Prediction: The people screaming about innocence until guilt is proven in court in defense of the rapists will not hesitate to accuse this woman sans evidence of maliciously filing a fake police report.

or how about this gem:

Amanda Marcotte Apr 10th, 2006 at 10:53 pm That’s because yours is a bullshit question. If they don’t have enough evidence, they won’t prosecute. I find it fascinating as hell that when someone is accused of rape, and only rape, all of a sudden there’s this huge contigency of defenders of holding the highest possible standards of “reasonable doubt�.

The problem here is like Quart said–people are simple minded about justice and assume that “not guilty� is equivalent to “innocent�. If it was, the courts would say “innocent�. They just say they can’t prove guilt. Woman haters want to exploit this misconception in order to strip away what little ability society has to keep rape in check by making it impossible for women to press charges because rape accusations are to be set aside as the only kind of accusation where the victim is expected to have an airtight case in order to call the police. I hardly think that if you were mugged, you’d feel it was right to have to put together a roster of DNA evidence, fingerprints and eyewitnesses together before calling the cops in order to make damn sure that you weren’t sent to jail instead.

Setting aside rape accusations as a punishable offense, even without a shred of evidence, has only one purpose–to make rape legal in any practical sense. Anyone who argues for prosecuting rape victims for being raped in a way insufficient to prove it, even though they could hardly control the situation or else they wouldn’t have been raped, is arguing for the legalization of rape, QED

Or how about her notion regarding defending violence :

The more helpless the victim, the more defensible the violence
Published by Amanda Marcotte April 19th, 2006 in Conservatism
Right now there are two cases of groups of college students acting out of control and possibly violent that are burning up the blogosphere. First you have the students from Santa Cruz that blocked military recruiters from entering their school in a confrontation that seems to have had some violent overtones to it. Then of course you have the Duke rape case, which even with the caveat that there’s a slim chance a rape didn’t happen, it’s clear that the lacrosse team members did something to scare the shit out those women and that shared fantasizing about violence against women was part of the fun.

Suffice it to say, the two cases are being received much differently by the right punditry. The Santa Cruz peace group is being called “seditious� and had Michelle Malkin release their private information on her blog so they could get death threats from her readers. As I mentioned yesterday, Kathleen Parker compared the Duke lacrosse team to lynching victims (missing the much more apt comparison of them to lynchers due to the whites-ganging-up-on-one-black-person aspect) and even vaguely implied they were martyrs like Christ. Charlotte Allen is running a series on the Duke rape case called “Crying Rape�, which she says means “accusing someone of rape�, but for some reason she felt that the phrasing that implies to most of us that the victim is lying worked better. The good news is so far I haven’t seen any right wingers fantazing about another Kent State at UC Santa Cruz, and believe me, I looked.

But what strikes me about the two incidents is that they are both good examples of how violent acting out is derived from feelings of entitlement. The Santa Cruz kids felt entitled to run the recruiters off campus because they feel the campus belongs to them and they should have the right to run people off their property. At bare minimum, the Duke lacrosse team felt entitled to humiliate the strippers they hired because they were women and they were even paid for. At worst, they felt entitled to gang rape a woman for those reasons.

I’m inclined to think that the Santa Cruz students might have a right to do what they did, because I’m convinced that they, as the actual students at the school, are entitled to their claim to the school, and especially that they have a stronger claim to it than the military recruiters. It’s hard for me to quarrel with people in the age group that’s being targeted to fight BushCo’s colonialist adventures when they resist that recruitment, even to the point of violence. Since their motivations are understandable to me, it’s hard for me to be anything less than half-hearted in my condemnation of it.

Which is what makes language like Parker’s or David Brooks’ rape apologies–they argue that it’s quite understandable that boys will go bananas and rape someone if they are exposed to a woman shaking her ass, which makes any condemnation of such things come across as half-assed and shallow. Just as my disinclination to jump all over the Santa Cruz students speaks volumes about my agreement that they’re entitled to claim campus space for the students instead of the military, conservatives who white wash the Duke rape case are speaking volumes about what entitlements they are willing tolerate, in this case, white male entitlement to abuse women and get away with it, especially if they are of the wrong sex class or wrong skin color.

Also, I haven’t read too much by her, but she would seem a poor match for Edwards’ faith based breed of Democrat, but he’s not my favorite dem either so I don’t much care what blunders he makes. However, I do wish that insead of his ’she didn’t mean anything by it’ BS Edwards had been more honest and said ‘I don’t agree with some of their comments and sentiments but I don’t think that means we can’t work together towards those goals we share in common such as blah blah blah”

The most interesting part of this story to me is the jarring results of bringing a blogger who seems to be popular partially because of their passionate, sometimes over the top rants, gets brought into our main streem culture with its high levels of scrutiny.

As a conservative, I am VERY VERY pleased that she is still on Edwards’ team. When one is so filled with bile as is Marcotte, it will have to come out sometime. Recall FireDogLake sticking Lieberman in “Blackface” in a Photoshop…and Lamont having to scurry to dissociate himself.

Remember, Edwards’ base in N.Carolina. The Duke case is raging in that state, and Marcotte has made clear she things the white boys should go down for being white boys.

Marcotte will not be able to restrain herself. There will be an eruption at some point…she is a ticking time-bomb at the heart of the Edward’s camp!

Hillary has got to be pretty pleased today.

For those that think that too much is being made of it, whose response to it are you criticizing? If you say that people shouldn’t have demanded that these people be fired, I agree. But my opinion is that if a candidate hires someone who expresses opinions in this manner, there WILL be offense taken in the sense that this whose communication style is being chosen to represent him.

I’m not asking for them to be fired (nor defending those who did), I’m not advocating violence against them, I’m not taking to the streets demonstrating against them, I’m not saying their speech shouldn’t be allowed.

What I would like though, is for decent people who identify as moderates to respond to that kind of criticism of a religious belief by saying that it is an inappropriate way to criticize. Instead, the consensus is “no big deal”, “these are respected progressive bloggers”, “everybody has lapses”, etc. I’ll repeat what I said earlier, my hopes for rational discussions between people on different ends of the political spectrum are crushed when I see moderates reacting that way.

They are not anti-Catholic per se, and in reality not even anti-Christian, IMO. They are anti-religion. How else to explain comment ‘justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology’?

Woohoo! We have uncovered a rabidly anti-mystical biggot. (Er, not anti-mystical…anti-religion. (Er, not anti-religion, anti-religion-assumed-to-be-used-to-justify-mysogyny.))

Look. It’s offensive. I doubt anyone is arguing, “I don’t see how this could be offensive.” Step back and look at what you’re protesting here. You’re protesting offensively, bad taste that pre-dates employment by someone not even publicly running for office.

This is worse than the silly string of nannygates from a decade ago.

Good old fashioned right wing nit-picking attack mode folks, nothing new here. Recipe: find something no matter how small like a small comment or remark, whip it to a foaming froth within the furthest reaches of the far right of your bowl. Sling the outraged froth to all corners of the media to see if it sticks, then repeat untill froth recedes hopefully damaging any targets it hits, and hopefully taking a few people down.

Lovely recipe used often when lack of substance is a problem, concoction often prepared for church socials, or cases of warhawking. Also known as outrage fluff, often nothing more than air with little substance, serve cold.

Hopefully the blogosphere is put on notice that you can make future career choices improbable by saying things beyond the pale.

Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit?

A: You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology.

I am an atheist, and there is no doubt in my mind that these comments are not ‘jokingly make fun of someone’s faith’, ‘collegete satire stylistically similar to Family Guy taken a step further’, or ‘offensively criticize without being biggotted’.

They are not anti-Catholic per se, and in reality not even anti-Christian, IMO. They are anti-religion. How else to explain comment ‘justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology’?

This is a person who has demonstrated throughout the sum of her postings a great hostility towards religion, men, and ‘red state’ values, if you will.

I have no need or desire to see her fired, but it is dis-ingenious to claim that criticism of her is unfounded and driven only by right-wing bigots, and shows that an atheist can never be elected.

I firmly believe an atheist can and will, as long as they aren’t hostile to religion in general, and this appointment does show at the least an insensitivity to religion.

A person makes a obviously insulting remark concerning those who believe in Jesus Christ, and the Catholics decide it’s directed at them.

Why leave out the Southern Baptists, Espiscopalians, Methodists, etc?

I don’t want to put any ideas in the heads of folks, but do you sense a bit of Catholic as Superior Christians at play here?