Perhaps this clueless phony from North Carolina really DID have a plan. Maybe, the idea was to hire Amanda Marcotte to run his blog, and Melissa McEwan as a technical adviser, to give him some cred in the left-wing blogosphere. After all, it is generally the extremes that energize the primaries.
Maybe he really didn’t know how offensive these women were, or if he did, maybe he figured that he could use their help, and then send them on their way when he started taking some heat. What he surely didn’t consider, though, was that news travels lightning fast in the blogosphere, and within a few days his campaign was getting skewered by everyone to his right—and that includes a lot of people.
Even though their tenure with his campaign was brief, there was more than enough time for the unhinged and often vulgar commentary of Ms. Marcotte to be revealed to the world, direct from her own blog.
As explained by soulhuntre on his blog herdwatching.com…
Amanda is the product of all the crap that has been coming from the Left for generations now. She hates whites. She hates men. She hates the rich. She is the product of the class war and racial guilt that flows like water. The problem is, the people who created her don’t actually want her to be so loud about it. In a way I feel sorry for Amanda. She is about to find out that her heroes have never believed the stuff they have fed her all her life.
Of course, one can ask why a presumably intelligent 29-year-old (from her own bio) would not have already discovered that. Heck, Edwards never even put up a very good front with his “two Americas” shtick, given his opulent lifestyle. Either Amanda was simply thrilled that anyone outside of her sphere noticed her, or she actually did believe the drivel he was spouting.
As is usually the case when one is researching a sordid affair, there are plenty of collateral items that fall out.
It was edifying, if not exactly surprising, that many like-minded Leftist, feminist, and atheist bloggers would come up in a tidal wave of support for Amanda, the victim. As they would spin it, she was forced out by some sort of right wing conspiracy. Trust me, it was no source of joy wading through some of these blogs. While we all know that there are angry nut cases out there, it is still a sobering experience when you see them right on your computer screen.
And, think about this “victim” mantra for a moment. About the only “right wing” voices heard on the matter were Michelle Malkin doing a dramatic reading of some of Amanda’s juicier posts, and Bill Donohue of the Catholic League weighing in our her less than tactful remarks about the Virgin Mary and the Pope. Most other commenters got their material from these sources. Does she think that absent this exposure she would never have been found out?
How does that square with her own claim that she “…run[s] and write[s] for a blog called Pandagon, which is one of the top liberal political blogs on the Internet and known mostly for insightful and often humorous political blogging.”
Apparently in her fantasy world (occupied by her supporters, it seems), she is supposed to have infinite rights to free speech, but this does not apply to those who attack her. More than that, all of her views are pure and given in a spirit of goodwill, but her detractors inevitably have some evil agenda.
Right wing hit job or not, it was Edwards who got rid of her. He certainly could have kept her, but thought better of it. His foolishness and indecisiveness in this little business will plague his campaign for the duration.
As my friend Vin Lewis long ago concluded when wondering just why people like Marcotte, Edwards, et al. are put on this Earth: It can only be for entertainment value.