Edwards’s Bloggers Cross the Line, Critic Says

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.

John M. Broder

One the one hand, it is interesting that even the NY Times is admitting to the stench of this. On the other hand, the NYT is firmly in the camp of The Beast in Pants Suits, so this might just be a little barrel-fish-shoot on their part.

For liberals, this is a big, fat case of "as ye sow, so shall ye reap." Political correctness and constant offense-taking at rhetoric is a two-edged sword.

There is a rumor going around that these two bloggers were selected by Mrs. Edwards and that the Silky Pony may not even have known about it. If so, it is yet another object lesson in the pain of letting one's spouse make executive decisions in a political campaign. I personally know of more than a few campaigns that were sunk on that single blunder alone.