The Edwards-Marcotte Fiasco

[EC]

Mark, I just commented elsewhere on IMHO's concern about sharing her feelings and thus opinions on this case because it would reveal too much about her personally.

More lies.

I've never expressed concerns over "sharing [my] feelings and thus opinions on this case."  I have no concerns over doing so and have given no reasons for posting what I chose to post.


You might want to watch those Superbowl predictions - EC will brand you as having no credibility if the wrong team wins. LOL!

Well then, HERE is your platform.  WHY do you post one smear after another about the falsely accused here considering you have stated you do not believe the FA? 

[Lora]

I actually agree in part with Bob in P (!).  I don't have a problem with how Amanda used the "f" word.

Amanda did not use the "f" word as gratuitous profanity.  She used it in the old-fashioned meaning of the word.

Yet you seem to have a problem with words like "grandpa", "cotton", and "shirt"?  Lora, I am shocked at your ability to pick and choose what things upset you.

I am able to pick and choose because I don't take things out of context.

[EC]

I actually agree in part with Bob in P (!).  I don't have a problem with how Amanda used the "f" word.

Amanda did not use the "f" word as gratuitous profanity.  She used it in the old-fashioned meaning of the word.

Yet you seem to have a problem with words like "grandpa", "cotton", and "shirt"?  Lora, I am shocked at your ability to pick and choose what things upset you.

I am able to pick and choose because I don't take things out of context.

Like DNA evidence, Lora?

[abb]

http://www.overlawyered.com/2007/02/marcotte_encore.html

Marcotte encore
John Edwards' selection as his blogger-in-chief of Pandragon's Amanda Marcotte has mushroomed into what National Journal "Beltway Blogroll" terms "the first blog scandal of campaign 2008," made more piquant by Marcotte's quick move (documented in our Friday post) to delete her bizarrely abusive rantings about the Duke case once they began to attract attention. I should note that in our very active comments thread, Ted takes a different view than I do of the affair, and I explain in turn (in a comment kindly quoted by K.C. Johnson) why I think the episode does reflect poorly on Edwards' campaign:

John Edwards's life in the law and experience with the justice system is his major resume item dating back beyond the past few years, as well as the major reason this site has given his career extensive coverage. Moreover, the Duke case, which looks ever more like the Scottsboro Boys case of our era, has been convulsing his own state of North Carolina for month after month. Edwards' dodging of the case -- his apparently successful stifling of any urge to speak out at the plight of the falsely accused -- might on its own stand as merely cowardly. Marcotte's hiring, on the other hand, throws an even less attractive light on it, rather as if, in Scottsboro Boys days, an on-the-sidelines Southern senator took on as a major spokesperson someone who'd been yelling the Boys' guilt from the rooftops in the most crudely prejudicial language.

On Marcotte's quick removal of her Duke comments, Dale Franks at Q and O makes the legitimate point that there's nothing intrinsically improper in bloggers' going back to amend or delete past posts that they now realize are mistaken or which no longer reflect their evolving views. And Ted cautions, also quite fairly, against evaluating a blogger's fitness for a real-world post by pointing to the most inflammatory of his or her thousands of past posts.

Part of what lends the Marcotte episode such a comic aspect, however, is the timing and nature of her post and later revision. Her vitriolic rant asserting the lacrosse players' guilt was posted a mere two weeks ago, almost certainly at a point after (as the Atlanta airport reference indicates) she had already entered talks with the Edwards campaign and thus had reason to know that she might soon come under the heightened scrutiny accorded to an official spokesperson. These were not the impulsive utterances of a Net Newbie. Moreover, the temperate-sounding new "official stance" with which she replaced the scrubbed post is ludicrously different in both tone and content from the rant it replaced; at a quick reading, one might even take it for a defense of the lacrosse players. A closer examination of its dodgy language, however, reveals that she does not actually take anything back; there is no indication that she has reconsidered her view of Jan. 21 or sees it as being in need of actual correction.

As for whether Marcotte was just having a bad day and slipped into an abusiveness that is unrepresentative of her usual tone, even a cursory glance through her output at Pandagon makes clear that there is much more embarrassment for the Edwards campaign to come: a few examples are collected at LieStoppers (scroll to "Earlier Comments"), Michelle Malkin, and Creative Destruction.

Some further commentary: Common Sense Political Thought, Protein Wisdom, Mark Steyn @ NRO "There are two Americas: one in which John Edwards gives bland speeches of soporific niceness, the other in which his campaign blogger unleashes foaming rants of stereotypically obsessive derangement."

[Gunslinger]

Believe me, I understand about being judged by the "company" you keep. J here at TL also considers her a friend-are you going to judge her based on that? It seems that if you are a feminist you are immediately labled a man-hater or lesbian. Why is that? I looked in on this same topic at LS and thought I had hit on the Stepford blog by mistake.  Why are women with a "foul mouth" looked at differently than men? I don't agree with her views on this case but I do think some of her causes are good and her opinions need to be expressed. Maybe the worst I could say is her use of this case to back up her cause was a bad choice. Other than that, I would still invite her to participate in this discussion.

Mark, I think you are missing the key point here...Marcotte is objectionable because she is a radical propagandist who utterly rejects reasoned discourse (condemned out of her own mouth, I might add).  Her anger, her profanity, and her lack of logic, though tiresome, are side issues.

In hiring Marcotte (or in not correcting his staff's mistake), Edwards puts his imprimatur on Marcotte's blogging style.  If he's willing to do that, then I for one will have strong reservations about voting for him.

[Bessy]

Believe me, I understand about being judged by the "company" you keep. J here at TL also considers her a friend-are you going to judge her based on that? It seems that if you are a feminist you are immediately labled a man-hater or lesbian. Why is that? I looked in on this same topic at LS and thought I had hit on the Stepford blog by mistake.  Why are women with a "foul mouth" looked at differently than men? I don't agree with her views on this case but I do think some of her causes are good and her opinions need to be expressed. Maybe the worst I could say is her use of this case to back up her cause was a bad choice. Other than that, I would still invite her to participate in this discussion.

Mark, I think you are missing the key point here...Marcotte is objectionable because she is a radical propagandist who utterly rejects reasoned discourse (condemned out of her own mouth, I might add).  Her anger, her profanity, and her lack of logic, though tiresome, are side issues.

In hiring Marcotte (or in not correcting his staff's mistake), Edwards puts his imprimatur on Marcotte's blogging style.  If he's willing to do that, then I for one will have strong reservations about voting for him.

I will not vote for him no matter what.
At least I can do that much.

[inmyhumbleopinion]

Well then, HERE is your platform.  WHY do you post one smear after another about the falsely accused here considering you have stated you do not believe the FA? 

I haven't stated that.  Why is that so hard for you to grasp?

[svolich]

Noticed she was planning a move to Chapel Hill..she is being torn to shreds here as well as on LS. Maybe TL can invite her here to explain her comments. I think she should have the opportunity to explain her comments and express her opinion.

If she were the MasterBlogger for a candidate for Congress or County Supervisor, yes.  The Senate or for Governor, maybe.  But she's just broken into the big league.  There are 1000 people just as good as her who would drop their lives to have her job. 

And (to continue with the baseball analogy for a moment) in her first at bat, she just spit on the umpire. 

Her posts on PD don't tell us anything new about her.  Edwards hiring her tells us a LOT about HIM.  Either he doesn't vett his employees well and didn't know about what she'd written.  Or he DID know about what she'd written, and he was fine with her being his public face.

 

[Bob In Pacifica]

svolich, I don't know if the hiring tells us much of anything about Edwards. He may never have heard of her name before the story broke. Hiring someone to do a blog is something someone farther down in the campaign does. I would hope that Edwards hasn't been spending his time vetting Marcotte. Whenever someone in a political campaign does something stupid to embarrass a candidate I am reminded of that photo of Roslyn Carter with John Wayne Gacy.

What will tell us more about Edwards is how he and his campaign drops Marcotte if she hasn't already done the right thing.

[Bessy]

Noticed she was planning a move to Chapel Hill..she is being torn to shreds here as well as on LS. Maybe TL can invite her here to explain her comments. I think she should have the opportunity to explain her comments and express her opinion.

If she were the MasterBlogger for a candidate for Congress or County Supervisor, yes.  The Senate or for Governor, maybe.  But she's just broken into the big league.  There are 1000 people just as good as her who would drop their lives to have her job. 

And (to continue with the baseball analogy for a moment) in her first at bat, she just spit on the umpire. 

Her posts on PD don't tell us anything new about her.  Edwards hiring her tells us a LOT about HIM.  Either he doesn't vett his employees well and didn't know about what she'd written.  Or he DID know about what she'd written, and he was fine with her being his public face.

 

I can't figure what what is good about her even if I  ignore what she wrote about the Duke case. Maybe somebody can explain it to me.

[svolich]

svolich, I don't know if the hiring tells us much of anything about Edwards. He may never have heard of her name before the story broke. Hiring someone to do a blog is something someone farther down in the campaign does. I would hope that Edwards hasn't been spending his time vetting Marcotte. Whenever someone in a political campaign does something stupid to embarrass a candidate I am reminded of that photo of Roslyn Carter with John Wayne Gacy.

What will tell us more about Edwards is how he and his campaign drops Marcotte if she hasn't already done the right thing.

BiP, I would agree with you if it was Feb 2008.  But it's almost 2 years till the election, Edward's campaign staff isn't that large yet - nobody's is, not even Hillary Clinton's.  If a campaign staff was larger than a 2 dozen people, now, the candidates would just be burning cash by the bucket.  

At this stage there's no more than one layer between Edwards and Marcotte.  He might not have hired her directly - but he hired the person that hired her, and it was put past him before it happened.

I do agree that his response will be instructive.  He's in a no-win situation (see: Kobayashi Maru).  He has to minimize the damage, since it can't be avoided completely.  Letting her go on as she is now will damage him in the early states, dumping her damages him in key netroots sectors.  He should give her a raise contingent on her being absolutely quiet, keep her on staff but make her invisible.  

Bessy - I have to really, really stretch but I think I can play devil's advocate on this one.

She's a good writer - lucid, easy to read, funny.  She's popular in the netroots.  She shores him up there, he needs it and he knows it.  He's running as another centrist Democrat - but as such, he's behind Hillary.  Heck, he's behind Biden.  So he somehow has to be BOTH a centrist and a leftist.  

[inmyhumbleopinion]

IMHO: I haven't stated that.  Why is that so hard for you to grasp?

I have to agree with Immie here. She's incapable of admitting to an opinion.

You are clearly obsessed with me, Bob in Pacifica.

Doctor, heal thyself.

[EC]

IMHO: I haven't stated that.  Why is that so hard for you to grasp?

I have to agree with Immie here. She's incapable of admitting to an opinion.

You are clearly obsessed with me, Bob in Pacifica.

Doctor, heal thyself.

Says the narcissist.

[Bob In Pacifica]

Bob: Mark, I just commented elsewhere on IMHO's concern about sharing her feelings and thus opinions on this case because it would reveal too much about her personally.

IMHO: More lies.

I've never expressed concerns over "sharing [my] feelings and thus opinions on this case."  I have no concerns over doing so and have given no reasons for posting what I chose to post.

I never said you expressed your concerns. Quite the opposite. Your actions speak. By the way, didn't Peebs get all bent out of shape about me calling Cash "liar by omission"? I guess he's watching the Super Bowl.

[Whippersnapper]

svolich, I don't know if the hiring tells us much of anything about Edwards. He may never have heard of her name before the story broke. Hiring someone to do a blog is something someone farther down in the campaign does. I would hope that Edwards hasn't been spending his time vetting Marcotte. Whenever someone in a political campaign does something stupid to embarrass a candidate I am reminded of that photo of Roslyn Carter with John Wayne Gacy.

What will tell us more about Edwards is how he and his campaign drops Marcotte if she hasn't already done the right thing.

BiP, I would agree with you if it was Feb 2008.  But it's almost 2 years till the election, Edward's campaign staff isn't that large yet - nobody's is, not even Hillary Clinton's.  If a campaign staff was larger than a 2 dozen people, now, the candidates would just be burning cash by the bucket.  

At this stage there's no more than one layer between Edwards and Marcotte.  He might not have hired her directly - but he hired the person that hired her, and it was put past him before it happened.

I do agree that his response will be instructive.  He's in a no-win situation (see: Kobayashi Maru).  He has to minimize the damage, since it can't be avoided completely.  Letting her go on as she is now will damage him in the early states, dumping her damages him in key netroots sectors.  He should give her a raise contingent on her being absolutely quiet, keep her on staff but make her invisible.  

Bessy - I have to really, really stretch but I think I can play devil's advocate on this one.

She's a good writer - lucid, easy to read, funny.  She's popular in the netroots.  She shores him up there, he needs it and he knows it.  He's running as another centrist Democrat - but as such, he's behind Hillary.  Heck, he's behind Biden.  So he somehow has to be BOTH a centrist and a leftist.  

Yes, these are the times that try men's souls.  I predict that Edwards will be found wanting in this trial.  Whatever he does, I think he'll try to do it quitely.  He may be abbetted in this by the mainstream media.  Hopefully the blogs will call him out on it.