CNN isn't the only media outlet reporting on the anti-religious John Edwards campaign bloggers in a painfully incomplete manner. Howard Kurtz carved out a little space deep in today's Washington Post Style section (on page C-7) for a story headlined "John Edwards Keeps Controversial Bloggers." Although bloggers on both sides are identified by labels, there's no ideological "liberal" or "feminist" label used for the Silky Pony's poison pens:
Former senator John Edwards said yesterday that while he is offended by some inflammatory remarks written by two bloggers before he hired them for his presidential campaign, he is keeping them on anyway.
As The Washington Post reported Monday, Amanda Marcotte wrote of the Duke rape case: "Can't a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it? So unfair."
The New York Times reported Wednesday that a second newly hired blogger, Melissa McEwan, had among other things written about President Bush's "wingnut Christofascist base."
After days of criticism by conservative bloggers, Edwards said in a statement: "The tone and the sentiment of some of Amanda Marcotte's and Melissa McEwan's posts personally offended me. It's not how I talk to people, and it's not how I expect the people who work for me to talk to people....That kind of intolerant language will not be permitted from anyone on my campaign."
But Edwards said he wanted to give the bloggers a "fair shake" and that he accepted their word that they never intended to malign anyone's faith. In an obvious allusion to denunciations of the two women by conservative bloggers, Edwards said he would not allow his effort to debate the issues to be "hijacked."
Marcotte said in an online posting that her comments on religion were "generally satirical in nature. . . . My intention is never to offend anyone for his or her personal beliefs, and I am sorry if anyone was personally offended by writings meant only as criticisms of public politics."
McEwan said: "It has never been my intention to disparage people's individual faith, and I'm sorry if my words were taken in that way."
The controversy has sparked a backlash among liberal bloggers, who say that conservatives orchestrated an attack on Marcotte and McEwan despite the incendiary rhetoric sometimes used by right-wing commentators online.
That's awfully free of the anti-religious blog language that completely rebuts the idea of these women having no intense to offend. The same thing happened in a brief online article by Post political writer Chris Cillizza (it says it appeared in the Friday paper on A-7, but not in my edition).
An AP story by Nedra Pickler on the Post website also passed right over the "more graphic" Marcotte & McEwan posts, but added this interesting detail at the end, that a liberal Catholic group also expressed dismay with the anti-Catholic posts in question:
Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, a nonprofit formed to highlight Catholic social justice teachings, also issued a statement condemning the bloggers' remarks but accepting Edwards' assurances that he was also offended.
"Catholics comprise more than one quarter of the U.S. public, and neither John Edwards nor any other candidate can afford to take this constituency for granted," said executive director Alexia Kelley, who served briefly as a religious adviser to 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.
Update 12:40 by Matthew Sheffield. For those looking for further analysis of Nedra Pickler's sanitization job, head over to LGF and Hot Air.
