Edwards Blogger Dustup: We Have All Been Dooced

Edwards Blogger Dustup: We Have All Been Dooced

Update: Amanda and Melissa stay on the campaign. More later.

Interesting happenings today with the Edwards campaign. Anyone who 1) blogs and 2) is employed should look at this seriously, and anyone who also 3) is an activist should take this really seriously. As for me I also 4) work for an elected official so it's even closer to home.

Recently John Edwards hired bloggers Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan for netroots outreach work. Now the Catholic Church is demanding their heads on a platter. The New York Times describes their writing in Old Gray Lady fashion:

Ms. Marcotte wrote in December that the Roman Catholic Church’s opposition to the use of contraception forced women “to bear more tithing Catholics.” In another posting last year, she used vulgar language to describe the church doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.

Ms. McEwan referred in her blog to President Bush’s “wingnut Christofascist base” and repeatedly used profanity in demanding that religious conservatives stop meddling with women’s reproductive and sexual rights.

In other words, they wrote like progressive young women outraged by the institutionalized sexism of the Church. Not all that different from what lots and lots of other lefty bloggers have done in their own way on their own target of outrage.

Here's the bad part: Edwards is actually thinking about sacking them.

In this era it's impossible to hide from your past. It will find you. A Google cache is forever (shudder). I'm not as familiar with Melissa, but Amanda Marcotte is a wonderful and spirited writer. If she's fired, the standard is set: any blogger who's ever written anything remotely controversial is off limits. Anyone with professional ambition will have to filter their writing through the Blandness Filter and their blogs will sound like mindless campaignspeak mush. Or disappear entirely, the way we lost Patriot Skullface last year when Charlie's excellent writing was thrown in his mom's face.

It hurts progressives and Democrats by making a major talent pool off limits, and it hurts the blogosphere by mental prior restraint. I know I'm stressing about some of what I've written over the past four years and what it does for my job prospects, and one live resume has already affected my writing. Bloggers, we have all just been Dooced.

Edwards, who's been the class of the field at blogger outreach, is under pressure from both ends. Chris at MyDD is going to the mattresses, both on and off line:

While there is no way I will support Edwards with Amanda and Melissa are fired, I will immediately become a staunch Edwards supporter if they are not fired. Consider the heinous reporting that is being done in this story, where bigot William Donahue is somehow an authority on what defines hate speech, it is clear that the Edwards campaign will take a lot of flack from outside the netroots if they do not fire Amanda and Melissa. Keeping them on would show a willingness to take risks and stand up to the media in a way that most Democrats just are not, all because the campaign will be doing so in order to defend the netroots.

The Edwards camp faces a series of simple choices right now:

• Are you with the people who work their asses for you, or are you with right-wing extremists who hate you?
• Are you willing to point out the double standards and hypocrisy behind this story, or will you cave to even the mildest pressure from the Republican Noise Machine?
• Do you have any loyalty to the netroots, or was it all just sweet talk, where loyalty actually only flows uphill and shit actually only flows downhill?

This is a big opportunity for his campaign. Whether he stands up or backs down will be a turning point for his campaign online. Either way, he won't be tied with Barack Obama in Dailykos straw polls anymore. It will be hard in one direction or the other.

KagroX at Kos points out this is not just Edwards' fight:

To the extent that the netroots seek to demand a show of loyalty by Edwards, that same demand must be made of every Democratic campaign. Today, the target is Edwards. Tomorrow, should this vendetta prove successful, the target could be anyone. If the other campaigns cannot demonstrate that they would have displayed the same courage we call upon Edwards to display, then they benefit from the right's strategy of divide and conquer.

And just about everyone has examples of winger hypocrisy and outrageous things that conservative bloggers now in the employ of various campaigns have written. But the right sticks by their folks, subsidizes them, rewards them for their evil talents. And it was beginning to look like Democrats were going to nurture folks too.

This may be stale by the time I get posted but I'm surprised none of the other Iowa lefty bloggers picked up on this today. Are we all job-hunting and keeping our heads down?