Wow! This qualifies as a coup, as far as I am concerned. I read Pandagon when other blogs link to it, but I haven't had the time to be a regular reader there. This way I get the best, right here where it's convenient. You guys are the greatest!

Hoppy in Sacramento

is there a middle ground?
of course there is.

it's in the middle, however, and if you have a difficult time residing there, and you reflect this in your writing, trouble will follow.

in the end, the candidates themselves will resolve this issue, as they ae going to be the ones paying the bills.

i recently posted on the subject of blog management here:

http://tpmcafe.com/discussiontables/misc_politics_table/2007/feb/11/on_the_wild_west_or_who_s_that_blogger

www.fakeconsultant.blogspot.com

I'd like to read what she thinks of Edwards's Israel speech.

I think the argument is putting the cart before the horse... Wingnuts, by definition, do not provide coherent arguments. So, no, to answer your question, it IS a pre-requisite that one not be able to construct a coherent argument to be a wingnut. Wingnut is the very nomenclature of that nature.

If the wingnuts started constructing coherent arguments, then they would have to be called "thoughtful bloggers on the right". And, frankly, that's too much to type.

~~~~~~~~~~~
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.

Come visit PROJECT: Lucidity.

Although I do love his sig line...cracks me up every time! 

Dissent Protects Democracy.

So for instance, someone named "ahem" rated the post above a 0. But ahem didn't feel any need to reply to the post. Just a drive by zero and move on.

On what grounds did that post rate a 0, "drop it into the bit bucket" rating?

The 0 rating is just silly abuse.

---- Just say no to 0 ratings. Especially from petey, the ratings abuser.

Jay,

I could probably go toe to toe with you on which of us is the furthest left and win. But I can tell you don't like people that disagree with you, and so you feel forced to call them names or assume they are people they are not. Remember if you call someone a name, you don't have to listen to them anymore! (Just a suggestion, "Troll" is one of the best names to call someone to completely shutdown the debate!)

In the meantime it is clear which of us has a better sense of irony.

---- Just say no to 0 ratings. Especially from petey, the ratings abuser.

Unsubstantiated claims that were clearly refuted in Marcotte's Salon piece?

That's close to the definition of troll. 

Got links? 

Dissent Protects Democracy.

I can hardly wait.

I can understand drawing the connection between Donahue and the "hate mongers" who "attacked" the Edward's campaign.

However, that is but a tangent to the central issue of this entire situation. Donahue merely raised it to the surface by examining and exposing what Amanda and Melissa actually wrote (and which they have not denied writing).

Granted - some religious liberals may proclaim they weren't "that" offended by what Melissa and Amanda wrote. However, some religious people could be put off by the level of crassness, crudeness and bitter sarcasm they utilized in their writing. And the fact of the matter is, these people were employed by a presidential candidate until their past writings and opinions were exposed.

I, personally, am not all that particularly religious; however, even I was offended by the 'tude of some of their criticisms of the Catholic faith. Similarly, I don't think I necessarily have to be black to see the offense when George Allen calls someone "macaca" or Limbaugh urges Senator Obama to "just become white".

Now, if you want to conflate "Christian fascists" with regular folk who happen to hold religious values, that is certainly yours, Amanda's and Melissa's perogative.

But it is dangerous, if not downright idiotic, for a presidential candidate to do so.

"How" Donahue went about "attacking" the Edward's campaign may be disasteful to some. But if we ignore and dismiss the "why", and why that is important, then we haven't learned a damned thing.

And franky, it would be no different than a politician who continues to conflate Al-Quaeda with Iraq.

As to "wide open debate culture of the emerging blogosphere", ummm, I don't know how "wide open" the blogosphere really is. During the '04 presidential campaign, the Dean campaign blogforamerica didn't allow wide open discussion, in fact if you dared to ask a question, no matter how polite you were and how your question was backed up with source material, you were either attacked as being a troll and shouted down, or censored by being banned. On the DailyKos, if you dare to counter any of his spin, or even questioned his bias because of the scandal surrounding him and his payola pal, Jerome Armstrong (Mr. Securities Fraud), you are banned.

The HuffPo won't allow postings that counter Arianna's spin, and the list could go on.

Getting back on track though, the political blogosphere, which touted itself as a solution to deal with corporate controlled media, has morphed into something little different. It's more often than not elitist, it views itself as a grassroots unto itself. Some of the Joe Trippi inspired members of the blogosphere write about their right to buy elections for themselves. Apparently, they don't get it anymore than their right wing counterparts.

It's become an exercise in social segregation.. and it doesn't achieve anything worthy of it's initial pretentions.

Now, I am not against Amanda Marcotte, but she did generalize all christians, paintng them all as being as guilty as the fundies. I read the blog post in question http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:SLJbczpwwmoJ:pandagon.net/2006/11/15/good-christians-shun-the-poor-and-the-downtrodden-declare-that-the-meek-are-for-crushing-under-the-heel/+amanda+marcotte+christian&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us If women were generalized in such a way in a blog post, or any other group, I'm sure she would feel offended, but it's become an acceptable practice to marginalize and demean christians. She's not alone, alot of her peers trashed Barack Obama last year for attending a progressive christian conference.. there were quite a lot of examples of that posted here on tpmcafe.com as I recall.

I was born and raised catholic, and goodness knows I have my problems with the organized church, but that doesn't render the many, many good and decent catholics out there, as deserving of scorn and the same can be said for other christian denominations. I've volunteered at soup kitchens and homeless shelters with christians who were the epitome of people attempting to follow Christ's example, in a loving and caring way. When my husband was dying in hospital last June, and the oncologist in charge couldn't care less that he wasn't getting the treatment he needed, one of my staunchest allies in helping me to fight to get humane treatment for him was a catholic priest who volunteered as a chaplain at the hospital.

Frankly, if we're going to discuss treatment of the poor, let's please include the neo-left who rationalized imposing Bush as a punishment against the most powerless to force them into sacrificing themselves for a "movement". Or the leftists who talk a good game, but never walk the walk. Who are condescending and snobbish towards the poor.

In '97, I was up in Brattleboro, Vt. and decided to volunteer at a local woman's shelter. The women who ran the shelter, as crunchy wholewheat as they come, segregated themselves away at all times from the women who stayed there. They spent their time in the basement room that they'd made comfortable for themselves, drank herbal tea and spoke rather judgementally and condescendingly about the women who sought refuge there. They never ran the support group meetings that they were supposed to. They accepted donations of food that was past it's expiration date from a local whole foods store.. and when I brought this to their attention, they argued that the women were lucky to get the food.

Ignorance and cruelty is unfortunately a human flaw, it has nothing to do with religion. Also, the last time I looked, any rigid dogma shares the flaws that are most criticized in religions. Elitism is a rigid dogma, yet that's just not on the menu for discussion anywhere on the blogoshere. Nor is there discussion about the impact of Bush's economy. While there was a brief focus on what hurricane Katrina revealed, the attention was for the most part exploitative and short lived. No follow up or discussion of how that dire poverty is reflected all across this nation, and growing all the time.

If Marcotte and/or any blogger wishes to affect change, they should be attacking the bad behaviors and hypocrisies, not the religion, and they should be examining the hypocrisies within their own community and dealing with those as well.

It's more often than not elitist, it views itself as a grassroots unto itself...Elitism is a rigid dogma, yet that's just not on the menu for discussion anywhere on the blogoshere.

Start your own blog, then.

Dissent Protects Democracy.

Though it's not my job to do your googling for you, here's a link to her original duke post and her new and revised post.

http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2007/02/edwards-fiasco.html

I don't think it's fair to portray this as right vs. left. Marcotte is an arrogant sexist, racist, bigotted individual and she has nothing to do with truth, justice or the American Way, much less the left.

It was her own arrogance and hubris, encouraged by the echo-chamber she nourished at Pandagon through bullying and deletion and banning of dissenting opinions that led her to think that someone who was so inflammatory should take a job on a presidential campaign.

If bloggers are now screwed in terms of campaign jobs, it is Amanda to blame, and so far, her continuing refusal to take responsibility for her own actions lead me to think she has nothing to offer a discussion of what happens now to bloggers and campaigns.

---- Just say no to 0 ratings. Especially from petey, the ratings abuser.

(Yeah, Petey never did like this sig much, it seems he just wasn't so proud of the way he rated others.)

Do you agree or disagree with the content of the post that the wingers objected to? Namely, do you agree or disagree that the Catholic Church actively spreads disinformation about birth control to young couples?

In my mind, that's a far more serious issue than an ill-considered picture caption. And yet it continues to get buried by people who don't appear to "get it" when it comes to the Marcotte/Donohue issue.

And let's be perfectly clear about Donohue: his shtick is "drawing the foul". All he does is whine about this or that being "anti-Catholic bigotry". I've yet to hear a coherent argument as to why anything Melissa published was "anti-Catholic" or "bigotry".

Mary,

if you keep getting site-banned from different places, it might be you.

I'm just saying...

Is your argument that Amanda did something wrong by taking down her post?

I'm really wondering what the standard here is. If somebody posts something, takes criticism for the post, and later replaces it with a more succinct statement of her position, is that somehow wrong?
Would you have been happier if she had kept up an "unfactual" post?

You say: "...take down."

She says: "Some vocal conservatives were accusing me of "scrubbing" my posting history at Pandagon, apparently on the theory that I was trying to hide inflammatory material. The evidence for this accusation was that I had mockingly rewritten a one-paragraph post..."

To me, take down refers to "scrubbing" -- deleting -- and "rewriting" is not the same as deleting.  

But what do I know? My reading comprehension is for shit.

In fact, I don't even know what I just said to you. To make it easier, please explain to me again how I'm such an idiot.

Thanks. 

Hey -- I thought you were unsubscribing? 

Dissent Protects Democracy.

Rick, all these advocacy groups play the same game. Perhaps you didn't tune into the "outrage" over Joe Bidens "clean" label for Obama. Black groups wanted to know what he meant by that.

The Council For American Islamic Relations is always whining about Muslims being persecuted and discriminated against. I don't even need to mention the gay advocacy groups, do I?

These are the rules of the game in today's politics. Any mistep or misspoken word can get you in trouble -- and in Edwards case -- the words weren't even his. It's a lesson he's lucky to have learned early when it won't hurt him so much.

It was her own arrogance and hubris, encouraged by the echo-chamber she nourished at Pandagon through bullying and deletion and banning of dissenting opinions that led her to think that someone who was so inflammatory should take a job on a presidential campaign.

Isn't there some responsibility Edwards hold here? Shouldn't they have vetted better? I mean, it's so obvious to you that she's "an arrogant sexist, racist, bigotted individual" -- I'm surprise a group of political professionals couldn't also pick up on this?

Also, let's say, she did build this isolated echo-chamber around her -- why would she have any credibility across the left-wing blogosphere? Why would Artrios and Bowers and kos be supporting such an arrogant racist?

Perhaps, as Mary from RI suggests, they, too, are part of this arrogant racist elitist leftist conspiracy that runs right through the very heart of the left-wing blogosphere?

Dissent Protects Democracy.