Lean Left

On the Edwards Thing

by Kevin

February 8th, 2007

I am going to be busy the next couple of days, but I wanted to comment briefly on the Edwards blogger thing. If you haven’t heard of it, count yourself lucky.

First, as I said at Obsidian Wings, this is not about Macotte. This is about Shakes. Notice that the AP report allowed the noted anti-Semite Bill Donahue to label both Macotte and Melissa as anti-Catholic bigots. Putting aside the issues of whether or Amanda’s harsher posts cross the line to bigotry (I do not believe they do, and this comes from someone who once picked a fight with a guy handing out chick tracts in Memphis — yeah, okay, not my finest moment, but jeez, man, chick tracts! — but they are undeniably harsh), there is simply nothing in Shakes writing that could be remotely considered anti-Catholic bigotry or unhinged in any way. It is a smear job, plan and simple. If Edwards fires her, then she is not only financially devastated but he validates the smear.

And that is what it is about: a warming to every blogger on the left who is considering working for a campaign or a becoming an activist for a cause they love. Do so, and you become fair game for the lowest kind of politics of personal destruction, to steal a phrase.

It is also a warming to every campaign who wants to reach out to people through blogs and other online communities: do so, and the worst things anyone associated with those blogs or communities will be used to attack the candidate.

Second, this attack is being lead by an anti-Semite and a woman who thinks internment camps for Muslims in America is just a brilliant idea. I am sorry, but since when should anyone take people like that seriously. The Edwards campaign should have come out right away and said something like:

“While I do not agree with everything my employees may have said or written before they became my employees, I refuse to be concerned by the fact that my hiring practices have offended a known anti-Semite and a woman who defends the internment of Japanese Americans in WWII and advocates the internet of Muslim Americans today. The fact that people like that are taken seriously says something ugly about the state of discourse in this country. All over the dial, racist, anti-homophobic, and bigoted remarks are said by right wing commentators every day. Worse, the President of the United States has held private meetings with and appeared on the shows of people who have said the most hateful, elminationist things imaginable. Until we stop taking this purveyors of hate and bigotry seriously, until we stop caring when we have offended anti-Semites and internment advocates, until our leaders stop pandering to and associating with the people who represent the worst in people, then this country can never come together and move forward.”

This is a gun fight, Mr. Edwards, and in this case your enemies have brought a knife to the fight. If you cannot take advantage of that, then your campaign is already dead. This is the least of what you will see. The modern conservative movement only does politics one way: the gutter way. There will be much, much worse coming down the pipe. You better learn to handle these and turn them to your advantage. If you can’t, then you have no business running for the Democratic nomination.

Finally, I think this sums up the dynamics of the situation pretty well:

Second point — when somebody starts harping on your language, or saying you’re crazy, they are trying to marginalize you without engaging your arguments. This is, to be blunt, class warfare. I recently read a fascinating quote by right-wing pundit Dinesh D’Souza, fascinating in how it unintentionally, obliquely, revealing it was:

In response, D’Souza calls for the American right to build a traditional values coalition with what he calls “traditional Muslims,” who abhor both bin Laden and Britney Spears. “Admittedly,” he acknowledges, “some on the right may feel uncomfortable about teaming up with Muslims. Yes, I would rather go to a baseball game or have a drink with Michael Moore than with the grand mufti of Egypt. But when it comes to core beliefs, I’d have to confess that I’m closer to the dignified fellow in the long robe and prayer beads than to the slovenly fellow with the baseball cap.”

Slovenly. You can practically see D’Souza’s pert little nose wrinkle up under his pince-nez at this fellow in — how unfortunate, how very earthy — a baseball cap. That’s the problem, as always — the peasants are revolting. Now that blogs have given them a publishing voice, why the national discourse is destroyed. When Judith Miller corrupted the New York Times in order to print lies about WMD’s and lead us into war, there was nothing to get upset about there, because she didn’t say fuck. Everyone’s aflutter at the swear words and some clumsy jokes in two relatively unknown women’s websites — they’re being called “mentally ill” by the right wing bloggers — while Dick Cheney subverts the Constitution, billions of dollars go missing in Iraq, habeus corpus is gutted, illegal wiretaps slide into place — oh, yes, you can disagree with thse things, but don’t dare raise your voice. Why, it brings on the vapors.

Class war on many levels, some of it institutional, some of it pettily personal. You see, if just anybody can express an opinion, then the professionals aren’t special anymore. And a lot of them spent their entire lives getting into the special club. They’re taken seriously, now, mister, they’re on TV and they wear ties and make speeches and just because you somehow managed to get an audience without any help doesn’t mean you’re going to strip them of their Heathers-like victory. No sir. Some have even managed to get semi-famous by sucking up to the pros, making “civility” their whole mission, covering that flank for them.

People aren’t supposed to be a part of politics. We have actual opinions and passions and since this stuff affects our lives directly, sometimes we get passionate about that. The holders of our public discourse hate genuine passion more than they hate anything else. One can be an anti-Semite or a defender of internment camps or a homophobe and get time on television and in the papers constantly. Show some genuine anger or passion that someone is an anti-Semite or defender of internment camps or a homophobe? Well, that’s just gauche …

Categories: Bloggin, General |