Not such good news as Mark’s last post on Bloggergate: Amanda Marcotte has resigned from John Edwards’ campaign staff.
No matter what you think about the campaign, I signed on to be a supporter and a tireless employee for them, and if I can’t do the job I was hired to do because Bill Donohue doesn’t have anything better to do with his time than harass me, then I won’t do it. I resigned my position today and they accepted.
There is good news. The main good news is that I don’t have a conflict of interest issue anymore that was preventing me from defending myself against these baseless accusations. So it’s on. The other good news is that the blogosphere has risen as one and protested, loudly, the influence a handful of well-financed right wing shills have on the public discourse.
I’m a big fan of Amanda’s writing: she’s a gifted rhetorician and polemicist. Her writing skills would have been a good asset for the campaign as she pushed the platform planks down the line. I’m confident that she would have been a thorough professional all the way through had she been given the chance.
Yet sad as I am for her that she’s lost the opportunity to be part of a high-profile campaign, I think she has done the right thing for the candidate she supports here. The attacks on her, and through her on Edwards, were sucking energy from the campaign’s message. It would have taken a Jed Bartlett to refuse her resignation and make such a refusal play as an electoral asset, and unfortunately for us all Jed Bartlett is a fictional character.
Now that she’s out of the campaign, Amanda seems quite keen to track down whether Bill Donohue has violated the Federal tax-code which explicitly prohibits tax-exempt organisations such as the Catholic League from engaging in partisan political activism. She also notes with gratitude the support from an organisation called Catholics for Free Choice, who stepped up to say that the Catholic League did not speak for them but who were ignored by the corporate media.
Another thing—this has doubled my committment to reaching out and helping highlight when the religious left fights the right wingers who have falsely claimed to speak for all religious people.
So far it appears that Melissa McEwan is still on staff. The reactionary attack-bloggers don’t have the same visceral hate for her as they did for Amanda, and her writing is rarely as pungently polemical, so it should be harder for the attack-pack to whip up hysteria about her writings before she joined the Edwards campaign. Perhaps Melissa will keep her job. UPDATE 14th Feb: Nope, she’s resigned as well.
That is very sad news indeed.
An examination of Donohue’s activities through his front organisation in respect of tax exempt status would be a worthwhile crusade.
If you read anything about the very blatant electioneering conducted out of many such organisations and churches, it’s really a scandal. They’re prohibited from political activity by law in order to retain tax exempt status. But if you look at former Republican strategist Kevin Phillips’ book American Theocracy and other informed sources, most hardly bother to even try to stay on the right side of the line now.
I hope this sets back or kills off the Edwards tilt for three reasons.
1) It smacks of McGoverns 110% support for Eagleton
2) It reminds us of Edwards vaccilations on election night 2004.
3) It reminds us Edwards voted for General Clusters war on the Indians.
So hopefully Obama will bump off Hellery and Bill Richardson will come in as draft Veep. I’d really prefer a ‘ Sharpton – Lee in 08′ ticket but realize thats unlikely. The Edwards, Carville, Clinton Lieberman wing of the Democrat party are actually ‘embedded’ too far into the establishment and are a serious part of the problem.
So good riddance to Edwards – don’t let the door hit yr butt on the way out.
Rhetorician – oddly enough, that’s a hard word to say.
Michael Bérubé commented thusly over at Pandagon:
Bérubé has a strong argument. There’s huge intolerance in the States for atheists generally, and especially in politics. The religious reactionaries know that many politicians are only talking the talk regarding faith, and they can’t stand it.
Targeting an unapologetically atheist junior staffer was just a way to remind all the candidates to pay their lip-service or else.
tigtog: [cites] “in this regard Donohue is no different from the mullahs who flipped out about the Mohammed cartoons.”
Oh, stuff and nonsense. Do wake me up, please, when Donohue’s people burn embassies to the ground, murder innocent clergy, assassinate filmmakers in the fucking street, and globally threaten the fundamental right of civilized people to free speech and a free press, through actual physical violence and the threats thereof. Get some perspective. This is mere tea-break political tussling. I’m honestly sorry that your blogger friend was forced out; but to continue to equivocate in these important matters is just another reason why so many people won’t trust the left when other pushes come to other shoves.
“Far from burgeoning
verdure, the hard way
is this street.”
– Frank O’Hara
Donahue demands special privileges in the arena of public discourse for his particular faith, categorising all criticism as bigotry while feeling free to criticise others in the most disparaging terms for their beliefs. That sort of hypocrisy is exactly the same as the hypocrisy of the outraged mullahs, just as Bérubé says.
Wherever and whenever a reactionary noise machine manufactures outrage and demands (whether literally or metaphorically) that heads must roll, there and then truly comprehensive public discourse is suppressed. Of course there are degrees, and threatening life and limb is certainly worse than threatening only livelihoods, but threats against critics just for their criticism is always despicable.
Marcotte and Donohue’s many previous targets have had their livelihoods lost by his disproportionate actions: that is real harm to actual people.
Atheists aren’t his only target, but Donahue is certainly working very hard to ensure that atheists are prevented from participating in political life. That’s bigotry for you.
I knew nothing about Donohue before Bloggergate but everything I’ve read suggests he’s doing despicable stuff. The use of the blogosphere to intimidate and threaten is deplorable, and the credulity and lack of ethics from the MSM in running with this bile arguably even more so.
tigtog — fair point.
Thanks, j_p_z. I understand your initial reaction, too. Thanks for looking past it to appreciate the comparison from another direction.
Your initial passionate reaction is a good illustration of why various analogies/comparisons need to be very carefully framed, however.
Doesn’t anyone here remember the IRA and their protestant counterparts? The catholics and protestants invented modern terrorism, it could be argued, radical islamists simply took that ball and ran with it.
Yup, Helen. Fanatics are easily persuaded to commit atrocities. It doesn’t really mattter what label they give to their fanaticism.
Currently, in the US, fanatics like Donohue can punish their critics to a level that satisfies them without resorting to violence, by using the noise machine to deny those critics full participation in public discourse. I have no confidence at all that that such fanatics would not resort to violence if their current tactics stopped working.
An example: terrorist tactics have worked pretty well for the anti-abortionists. Most medical schools in the US don’t even teach abortion procedures anymore after a few abortion providers were murdered, and some states have no abortion clinics for the same reason.
Tough luck if you’re a woman dying from pregnancy complications where the only solution is an abortion and your doctor has no idea how to do it safely.
That’s why our current system works so well in that regard, Tigtog.
Shooters are languishing in jail for life terms.
Organizations like Allison’s Fund (named for my daughter) pay for women to get abortions who can’t afford them.
Pro-lifers offer material help and options outside clinics.
AK, I think Allison’s Fund and the work of ethical anti-abortion groups to offer help to women experiencing a crisis pregnancy are both invaluable. The latter groups unfortunately seem to be vastly outnumbered by unethical anti-abortion groups that lie to pregnant women under the guise of helping them.
It’s the fanatics that are the problem. Also, is locking up just the shooter enough? What about conspiracy and incitement charges for various people who aid such assassins? Eric Rudolph is locked up now: how many of the people who aided and abetted him on the run have been charged.
Melissa McEwan has resigned as well.
Amanda writing at Salon on why she had to quit:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/02/16/marcotte/
A bit that I missed:
Michelle Malkin is demented:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=michellemalkin