John Edwards: Model Campaigner

It was announced recently that 2008 Presidential candidate John Edwards had hired two bloggers to conduct blogger outreach for his campaign. The bloggers, Melissa McEwan and Amanda Marcotte, both have a history of "take no prisoners" blogging, expressing their opinions and beliefs with what some consider to be harsh rhetoric (I personally find them both honest and refreshing).

Yesterday, Catholic League president Bill Donohue attacked the Edwards campaign and the women for posts they had written on their personal blogs, critisizing Catholicism for some of their practices (including the pedophelia scandal, and the Church's stance on birth control). Donohue claimed the girls were "anti-Catholic" and demanded Edwards fire them both.

Donohue himself is no saint, and has a history of foaming at the mouth:

"He has referred to the 'gay death style,' remarked, 'God forbid we'd run out of little gay kids,' claimed that Senator John Kerry 'never found an abortion he couldn't justify,' and claimed that 'Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular ... Hollywood likes anal sex.'"

Donohue also associates with unseemly characters that have said things McEwan and Marcotte couldn't even dream of. The Board of Directors of the Catholic League include:

Dinesh D'Souza (Who blames liberals for 9/11)
Alan Keyes (Hates his own child for being gay)
Kate O'Beirne (Who doesn't think women should have a life outside the home)

Edwards, at first, seemed to consider firing the bloggers and buckling to the right-wing hate machine, but in the end, handled the matter perfectly by issuing the following statement:

"The tone and the sentiment of some of Amanda Marcotte's and Melissa McEwen's posts personally offended me. It's not how I talk to people, and it's not how I expect the people who work for me to talk to people. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that kind of intolerant language will not be permitted from anyone on my campaign, whether it's intended as satire, humor or anything else."

Both women will be retained and continue working on the campaign, and Edwards has his first win against the right-wing noise machine.