Mainstreaming Amanda III

It seems Salon was wrong, Edwards is keeping the two bloggers he was considering firing.

I am personally glad. They will hopefully provide lots of blogging fun, and I hate to see them fired just because of fear of offending Catholics. They should keep their jobs based upon how effective they are. If they do that well and keep their noses clean while working for him that is to their credit.

When I put up my first post on this I never expected it would end up being such a huge issue. I looked at it as an amusing chance to ruminate about what it might mean about the direction of liberal and Democratic politics.

Of course the excuses given for their behavior is ridiculous. The focus on the anti-Catholic aspects is misplaced as well, but if they are the face of modern liberalism then so be it. I always thought Amanda was a caricature of the left, that Yglesias, Drum and numerous others were where the real soul of liberalism and the Democratic party lay. A fun place for liberals to go and get a bit of red meat. However, from all the various left liberal commentary and the very fact of their hiring I may have to question that. I am always told, and I try to keep it in mind, that we shouldn’t hold most liberals and Democrats views hostage to the Michael Moore’s and Amanda Marcotte’s of the world. I respect that in the same way that I don’t hold conservatives and Republicans up to scrutiny based on Ann Coulter or David Duke.

This makes me rethink that approach. I wasn’t one who called for their firing, but I did question their hiring and its implications, just as I would have questioned Rudy Giuliani hiring Ann. Everybody has faults and positions that bother someone, and that is fair game. Amanda however, if one is to believe her rants, is not a mere potty mouth (baggage sure, but I don’t really care) but that she is an extremist and vicious. In a time when the term extremist gets bandied around all too freely, she fits the bill. If the rhetoric coming from around the left side of the political spectrum is taken at face value, and that someone like Amanda is to the left as Patrick Hynes is to the right, then obviously what is mainstream liberalism is located far from where I have always thought it was. Michael Moore is no funny man whose views we shouldn’t really take seriously, he and Amanda are part of the mainstream now.

Just as the hiring of Jon Henke reflects positively on the Republicans, raising their profile in my eyes, showing a desire to engage the most responsible and reasonable parts of the center right and libertarian blogosphere; the almost hysterical defense,legitimation and downplaying of Amanda’s views reflects poorly on both Edwards and liberalism in general. It lowers them in my estimation. All those claims that the Democratic Underground are a bunch of cranks is a bit harder sell for me.

Here are McQ’s thoughts.

From Pajamas Media here is a roundup of other reactions:

Instapundit: “As I suggested earlier, that’s probably the right thing to do.”

Daily Kos: “It took a little while, but Edwards set the right precedent for how this type of smear should be handled.”

Glenn Greenwald: “This was a smart and potentially significant move by the Edwards campaign on several levels.”

Dean Barnett:
“[The] statement from the candidate himself neither stands behind the
bloggers nor throws them under the bus. It doesn’t say they’re staying,
it doesn’t say they’re going. What leadership!”

Sister Toldjah:
“Perhaps it was the threats from a few lefty Nutroots bloggers to
release the ‘post from hell’ if the decison wasn’t reversed that made
him change his mind? LOL.”

AP/Breitbart: “Edwards’ Bloggers Regret Critical Posts”

AP/Breitbart, again: “Edwards’ Bloggers Apologize for Comments”

IowaVoice doesn’t buy that the two bloggers weren’t intending to malign someone’s faith.

Huffington Post:
“The three-way standoff has been broken. The netroots have won. It’s
time for the blogs and Edwards to converge on the Right and put their
attacks to rest for good.”

Jeff Goldstein:
“Lost on these Marcotte supporters—who are cheering on the power of the
“netroots” to cow a politician into keeping on an ugly and hateful
liability—is that Edwards just showed up Marcotte and McEwan as frauds
and posturing blowhards, writers who have been pulling the wool over
their audiences’ eyes by posting vicious “arguments” they never truly
believed.”

John Cole: “If you ask me, he did the right thing.”

Hot Air:
“If they truly never meant to malign anyone’s faith, as Edwards says,
Marcotte and McEwan are two of the most incompetent writers on the
planet. Or they lied to him and he bought it whole. Or as Allah says,
he’s just taking us all for fools.”

Technorati Tags: Pandagon. Amanda Marcotte, John Edwards, Patrick Hynes. liberal, Democrat, Republican, President

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