Melissa McEwan has followed Marcotte in resigning from the Edwards campaign:
A second blogger working for Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards quit Tuesday under pressure from conservative critics who said her previous online messages were anti-Catholic.
... Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, responded that he considered the bloggers' past writings personally offensive and added that similar content would not be tolerated. But he decided to keep Marcotte and McEwan on staff to give them "a fair shake." ...
In other words, Edwards didn't really stand up for them. Worse, he obviously didn't see this coming. I mean, did anyone at his campaign read their blogs before hiring them? Was there any freaking doubt that bringing on the talents of two extremely outspoken feminists was going to provoke a showdown with a pack of howling, foaming, totally unhinged wingnuts?
When I heard about the initial hiring decision, I thought well, finally a Democrat has decided to pull a reverse 'Sister Souljah' and have a head on confrontation with the poisonous arbiters of what passes for civility these days. I thought that a Democrat might finally have decided it was time to have a serious discussion about whether bad words really are worse than material harm done to thousands of women or intentionally stoking racism, whether they're worse than calling for genocide, the hanging of political opponents and assassination as a standard tool of foreign policy. But that isn't what happened, and so here we are.
Unless Al Gore drops his hat into the ring, I'm perfectly content to let Democrats in primary states pick one of these hopefuls to represent our party. I have no particular affection nor animus towards any of them, though I'd defend them against lies or criticize them if they say things that I think are dangerously boneheaded. And on the day in 2008 when the party annoints its champion, I'll support that person, because any single one of them is better than any single Republican who's stepped up. That's not even a question.
But I'm not lining up to cheer for Edwards to be that person, no more than I'll line up for his fellow candidates who could have taken this opportunity to band together and shut out right wing criticism. In other words, to show the same mutual, partisan support that they expect all of us to muster up in support of the eventual winner.
Every Democrat running for the office of the presidency should hope daily that they'll be lucky enough to be counted as enemies by disgusting freaks like Michelle Malkin, Dinesh D'Souza, William Donohue, and James Dobson. They should pray that they'll say something progressive and rational enough to drive misogynists masquerading as Christians right out of their tiny, dim, little minds.
Every Democrat should know enough to understand that those people, hiding behind patriotism and religion, are faithless cowards who hate every founding principle of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. When those people criticize any Democrat, that Democrat should publicly give thanks. They should use it as an opportunity to contrast them with people of genuine faith and love of humanity, with true patriots, with people who have worked ceaselessly to bring the United States closer to a time when the promise of our founding documents is made manifest for every sector of society.
There is great honor in the criticism of scoundrels. The first Democrat to act like they understand this will gain a following so large and so quickly that it will give the political establishment whiplash just trying to keep up.
Also at Pacific Views