CORRECTION: John Edwards DOES NOT Fire Bloggers



(image via Lowculture)

As you know, Salon got it wrong. How about we think of this post retroactively as a thought-experiment: What if Edwards HAD fired the Bloggers?

Ah, the first martyrs of the political blogosphere; it's about time. It isn't a true grassroots movement until someone somewhere sacrifices themselves for the sake of the cause. According to Salon, John Edwards has fired those "infamous bloggers", Amanda Marcotte of Pandragon and Melissa McEwan of Shakespeare's Sister -- both influential Left Blogs -- over some admittedly intense rhetoric discovered by the Right Wing of the blogosphere that might alienate Christians potentially valuable to Edwards in 2008. A little preamble. From the excellent Brian Montopoli of the CBS News Public Eye Blog:

"The Catholic League is demanding that John Edwards fire a pair of liberal bloggers, Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, who recently signed up with the Edwards campaign.

"The bloggers' crime? They're 'anti-Catholic vulgar trash-talking bigots,' according to Catholic League President Bill Donohue. ABC's Terry Moran has a roundup of some of the pair's comments, which they made before they joined Edwards. Among them was this, from Marcotte, on the Catholic Church's position on birth control:

"'Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit? A: You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology.'"

Whew. Let's all calm down a bit. Granted, this is incendiary prose to the n-th degree (And The Corsair is a lapsed Catholic). But, we ask, should John Edwards, presumptive candidate and heir to the Howard Dean mantle of the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party (no less an august source than Time Magazine makes the comparison)" have fired these saucy bloggers over these blogged remarks? Ironically, the Howard Dean campaign went down in flames; could that be the ultimate fate of Edwards?

Should Edwards have fired them over outrage essentially coming from the Right of the blogosphere (Precincts, arguably, that he shouldn't even be listening to)? And does Candidate Edwards' failure to stand up for the two bloggers tarnish his polished surface image -- thus far unchallenged -- of cool? Does this leave a new maneuvering space for another Left-of-Center candidate that appeals to the "Daily Show" demo?

Edwards fired the bloggers, which, I guess is what he felt he needed to do to be viable as a candidate in the Bible Belt where he is supposed to be the competitive Democrat. But it cuts both ways, as Edwards wants to be the candidate of College students and the Moveon.org crowd. Can he be both Southern Man and Liberal Ironist? With this one political calculation and Edwards' steadfast opposition to gay marriage, he have just soured in Real Time. Things happen that fast. How can he be the Left-of-Center candidate as well as remain attractive to the Southern Bible Belt vote? It seems, on the surface, impossible.

This could be a pivotal moment in the Edwards campaign, the moment when his "smoothness" curdles, and then the question becomes: With all these early announcements, Doesn't that give each candidate ample time to implode?

And ... Is that What John Edwards just did?

And: Will Bloggers now have to self-censor themselves if they have any higher political or media ambitions?