The way the Edwards campaign has handled the "blogger" controversy kicked up by right-wing nutjobs Bill Donohue and Michelle Malkin is a fracking disaster.
First a quote from the item appearing this morning in Salon and then a comment below the fold.
Edwards campaign fires bloggers
The right-wing blogosphere has gotten its scalps -- John Edwards has fired the two controversial bloggers he recently hired to do liberal blogger outreach, Salon has learned....
The bloggers, Amanda Marcotte, formerly of Pandagon, and Melissa McEwan, of Shakespeare's Sister, had come under fire from right-wing bloggers for statements they had previously made on their respective blogs. A statement by the Catholic League's Bill Donohue, which called Marcotte and McEwan "anti-Catholic vulgar trash-talking bigots," and an accompanying article on the controversy in the New York Times this morning, put extra pressure on the campaign.
Speculation from sources that the two bloggers might be rehired was bolstered by Jennifer Palmieri, a spokeswoman for the Edwards campaign, who said in an e-mail that she would "caution [Salon] against reporting that they have been fired. We will have something to say later...."
The Salon War Room item posted at 11:21 am Eastern. It's now 4 pm Central and still no word from the Edwards campaign.
What to conclude? That John Edwards is a jellyfish who caves at the first whiff of criticism from notorious right-wing nutjobs? That his campaign is such a godawful mess it can't get its media act together?However this turns out, Edwards comes off a loser.
You'd have thunk Edwards would have learned a lesson watching John Kerry fumbling away his campaign in 2004.
In today's world, you don't leave an attack unanswered for even half a news cycle. And you don't make your candidate look like he lacks a spine.