Edward's bloggers' baggage

NY Times:

Two bloggers hired by John Edwards to reach out to liberals in the online world have landed his presidential campaign in hot water for doing what bloggers do — expressing their opinions in provocative and often crude language.

The Catholic League, a conservative religious group, is demanding that Mr. Edwards dismiss the two, Amanda Marcotte of the Pandagon blog site and Melissa McEwan, who writes on her blog, Shakespeare’s Sister, for expressing anti-Catholic opinions.

Mr. Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, is among the leading Democratic presidential candidates.

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, said in a statement on Tuesday, “John Edwards is a decent man who has had his campaign tarnished by two anti-Catholic vulgar trash-talking bigots.”

Mr. Edwards’s spokeswoman, Jennifer Palmieri, said Tuesday night that the campaign was weighing the fate of the two bloggers.

The two women brought to the Edwards campaign long cyber trails in the incendiary language of the blogosphere. Other campaigns are likely to face similar controversies as they try to court voters using the latest techniques of online communication.

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.

She has also written sarcastically about the news media coverage of the three Duke lacrosse players accused of sexual assault, saying: “Can’t a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it? So unfair.”

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There is more.

This is a reflection of the left wing blogs more than blogs in general. They tend to confuse insulting and profane language for logic. That they attract a wide audience for this type of blog suggest more about the lack of intellectual capacity of their readers than it does about the strength of their "case." John Kerry's initial response to the issues raised about his "botched joke" reflect this juvenile approach to political debate and the disastrous consequences to those who take it outside the left wing fever swamps. Edwards will probably dump these two, but right now he has to do it in a way that does not alienate the fever swamp crowd. The kook base of the party is a double edged sword that keeps nicking it on their back swing.