If you haven't already, you'll soon be reading about this New York Times article (also covered by the AP's Nedra Pickler):
Edwards’s Bloggers Cross the Line, Critic Says
Two bloggers hired by John Edwards to reach out to liberals in the online world have landed his presidential campaign in hot water for doing what bloggers do — expressing their opinions in provocative and often crude language.
The Catholic League, a conservative religious group, is demanding that Mr. Edwards dismiss the two, Amanda Marcotte of the Pandagon blog site and Melissa McEwan, who writes on her blog, Shakespeare’s Sister, for expressing anti-Catholic opinions.
Mr. Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, is among the leading Democratic presidential candidates.
Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, said in a statement on Tuesday, "John Edwards is a decent man who has had his campaign tarnished by two anti-Catholic vulgar trash-talking bigots."
This is going to be a watershed moment for John Edwards's campaign.
For those of you who don't know, the right-wing blogosphere has been throwing a fit for the last week ever since the Edwards' campaign hiring of Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon.net and Melissa McEwan of Shakespeare's Sister. Attempts to turn this into a "scandal" have been refuted many times over (for example here and here).
With the attack from the Catholic League, this non-scandal has received new life. The fact that the NY Times has picked up the story (which by the way seems to have done little more than to re-write the Catholic League press release) means that the Edwards campaign is likely receiving lots of pressure from donors and key political supporters to do a "Lani Guinier" and jettison Marcotte and/or McEwan.
Quotes such as these from the Edwards campaign are very, very worrisome:
Mr. Edwards’s spokeswoman, Jennifer Palmieri, said Tuesday night that the campaign was weighing the fate of the two bloggers.
Here's the message to John Edwards: there isn't anything to weigh. If you want to have any credibility left in the liberal blogosphere, then you cannot back down. You need to stand-up to this run-of-the-mill right-wing attack and defend your decision to hire Marcotte and McEwan.
Here's the thing. Yesterday's DailyKos strawpoll demonstrates that you have successfully convinced a plurality of the blogosphere to believe in you and your candidacy.
People believe in you because they think you've demonstrated and are more likely to continue to demonstrate more political courage than anyone else in the Democratic presidential field.
If you back down, if you give in to this right-wing head feint, you'll singularly destroy the rationale for supporting your candidacy. You'll demonstrate that you are just a regular politician.
This is a time for choosing, John Edwards. You can choose to to join the growing movement of liberal political courage, or you can opt for the counsel of a politics of fear.
Hopefully, you'll do the right thing.