In her syndicated column today, Ellen Goodman criticized Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan for an extremism that evidently bothers her only when it comes from Liberals. She refers to William Donohue as a "right wing watchdog," I think the term watchdog should not be used for double standard bearers.
She writes as if Marcotte and MeEwan were the only extremists involved in this case, Donohue has been the real instigator.
Because it hurts her claims, she refers to John Edwards's campaign only to establish where Marcotte and McEwan got scrutinized; she ignores the fact that Donohue was trying to find Edwards guilty by association...
I SUPPOSE you could describe these two women as cyber-trailblazers. But their cybertrails, alas, followed them from a checkered past, not to the glorious future. And the blaze they created was a bit more like a flameout.
Bloggers Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan came in from the heady environment of the blogosphere to the more staid climate of presidential politics, to work for former senator John Edwards...
I doubt these descriptions were in their job interviews with the Edwards campaign, but it didn't take long for a conservative watchdog to glean through the 24/7 postings of the two bloggers and come up with the sort of sound bites that leave teeth marks on a campaign.
She follows with some quotes from Marcotte and McEwan, but nothing, not even a name about Donohue. Does Ms. Goodman think that someone who says,
"Just imagine if a white guy is performing oral sex on a statue of Martin Luther King with an erection. Do you need to see it to know it's ugly?"
and
"Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, okay? And I'm not afraid to say it. ... Hollywood likes anal sex. "
is any more mainstream?
(quotes from Digby)
The gay community has yet to apologize to straight people for all the damage that they have done -- for contaminating the blood supply in New York City and around the country.
(from Media Matters) would someone in the mainstream say that gays hurt straights more by getting AIDS than straights hurt gays with Inquisitions, bashings, and blaming victims so they can procrastinate finding a cure for AIDS?
Goodman does quote McEwan's
"...description of President Bush's "wingnut Christofascist base.=,"
but is that really much worse than Republican talk of Islamofascists?
Goodman tries to sound sympathetic, saying,
We are living now in both the blogosphere and the mainstream. One is ironic and edgy, challenging and partisan. The other is cautious and modulated. Marcotte's and McEwan's fate raises the question about whether it's possible to move from the world of Ankle Biting Pundits to presidential politics without every word sticking to your shoe.
Yet, she doesn't refer at all to the reality that Donohue was trying to get Edwards. Does she know a swiftboating when she sees it?
This story makes me think of the Dixie Chicks. The only first-hand media account of their remarks in London came from The Guardian. How many of the protesters either heard from someone who is actually interested in what The Guardian has to say, or heard from a source outside the media? Now how many learned of it because some Bush cronies who own chains of radio stations did "Opposition Research" on targets large and small?
If we're to believe that Donohue wasn't trying to hurt Edwards, his bashing bloggers who happened to work for him goes way beyond the bashing of the Chicks who were famous in their own right.
I suspect that Goodman is a bit jealous of the freedom bloggers have. She's spent her career Limbaugh Dancing--bending over backwards as far as she can in hopes that ol' Rush won't find something to whine about in the inch her shoulders are off the floor.