Here’s your breakfast. Would you like toast with that?
You still look hungry. Here’s more.
And Pablo brought still more.
The Captain’s on it. Q&O. James Joyner. Patterico.
Dissenting voice PSoTD.
Phin from Agent Bedhead:
Wasn’t sure if you’d seen this:
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2007/2/7/80739.shtmlI heard about this on the local news (I’m in eastern NC) on the way to work.
The local news outlets are saying that it isn’t just the Catholics that are pissy. They mentioned that several other religious groups have started to move against Edwards and to call for the firing of Amanda.
To me, it kind of looks like the Pink Mafia may be getting, how you say, fucked.
Not for being wymen who dare to cuss, but for being hate filled shrews.
Kind of nice to actually see a liberal being held accountable for her actions.
Sister Leonora is gearing up. May God have mercy on your soul, because the penguin isn’t gonna.
Yup. Krispy creme. Once you’ve been noticed by the NYT and the press is unrelentingly negative, the fat woman has sung.
I would expect a quiet “reassessment” of Edwards online imperative and an equally quiet tossing overboard in the still of the night of Amanda and Melenie.
This will be immediately followed by the howling of the HuffKos both at Edwards weasiliness and those horrible, smearing neocon bloggers.
Should be fun…
Nothin’ like red meat for breakfast! I’ll take english muffins with mine….nooks and crannies rule!
Pablo linked tothat in the post below. I wish to register a strong protest. This is going to ruin the next 18 months.
btw, what does ROFL mean?
Right out of fucking line?
Good guess, furriskey, but it’s roar out fucking loud.
Rolling on the floor laughing, actually.
Which gave birth to ROFLMAO and even RAIMBYNLMAO.
Which has something to do with nudity, backyards and laughing.
I think if I were to Googlebomb this whole situation, I’d use something unwieldy like:
Now that’s damned shame, throwing away a perfectly good white girl like that.
Just for the record, I didn’t drop the dime with the Catholic League. So, do I feel guilty? Well, let me cite Ilyka Damen:
How do I feel?
Fine. I’d rather she got canned for the Duke idiocies than for outraging some of the creakiest of my co-religionists, and I really would rather she had retracted her bullshit than see her be fired, but I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. I’m not jumping for joy. I’m all right with it, though, because you live by identity politics, you die by identity politics.
I’m pretty sure that if I were ever a presidential candidate, this is how I would want people to defend my new hires.
“Shit, Penguin…” I hope Johnnycakes wasn’t planning on carrying the Northeast or Northern Midwest, or for that matter the latino vote in the Southwest.
Interesting note – the unfortunately named Nedra Pickler has the byline on the wire version of the story. I’m thinkin’ this wins her even more friends in the sinistrosphere… y’know, for her right wing hackery and all.
Fascinating to the outside observer. I mean, if Tony Blair, for example, had taken on a fraudulent, dishonest, raging queen as his aide de camp, so to speak, and either the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Archbish of Westminster had raised any objection, they would have told to shut up and stay out of politics.
But you upset an interest group in the USA at your peril.
Which brings me to my point, I suppose.
What do you guys have to do to become an interest group which will put the wind up politicians as efficiently as the Roman Catholic Church does?
How does one manage to acquire a PhD if after reading this, you think this is a worthy response.
furriskey,
It’s not the Church, per se. It’s a group of Catholics who got tired of Church and Catholic bashing and formed a grievance society. It’s really modelled on the Jewish Anti-Defamation League. They represent a largish, militant voting block, but really a minority of Catholics.
Oops. Bloc.
Bizarre, B Moe. But the picture she attaches to her carefull crafted ramblings is well chosen.
tw firm44 that would be a D cup, I think
Put the wind up?
Look, Reggie McBeefeater, there are literally fuckloads of Catholics in the US. In fact, there are about as many Catholics in the United States as there are black people of african-american descent (or whatever the correct term is.
Some of these Catholics choose to give a damn about their religion in much the same way that Amanda and Jill and others give a damn about their Obvious, Irrefutable Truths.
So, welcome to national politics, Amanda and the other chick. I’m sure you felt good writing all that anti-Catholic and anti-other stuff at the time.
And that’s what matters.
–
Block works just as well if your name is Edwards and you have ambitions..
Pablo’s new link, this anagram woman Nedra Pickler, is described as an AP Writer, so its probably bollocks.
Yay! Amanda lives!
Reggie McBeefeater? And after I was so complimentary about your cod headlines yesterday?
You brute.
Pip! Pip!
and all that.
I checked Pharyngula’s rather lengthy scientific-ish screed that BitchPhD links to seems to be missing an obvious fact – sperm and egg makes baby.
Pharyngula’s bit talks about how Plan B prevents the release of an egg for up to three days by spiking a hormone. This allows the sperm to die the lonely death they so richly deserve
Thus, absent an egg to fertilize, nothing really big happens from a moral perspective.
Okay, but the Plan B drug also prevents pregnancy in women who have already ovulated at the time the condom broke, or whatever.
How do Drs Bitch and Pharyngula ‘splain that?
If Bill Buckley can be repeatedly brought to task for something he said five decades ago, can Amanda Marcotte be held to account for things she said just last month?
I’d tend to think so.
I’d imagine they’d explain it something like this: the pill just encourages the body to do something that the body frequently does all by itself. Ova do become fertilized and then naturally fail to implant.
I think this is one of those areas where certain crowds of people are just never going to agree. If you hold that every fertilized egg is a sacred life that must be allowed to bloom, you’re going to be denying in vitro fertilization to pretty much everyone, because there’s untold number of fertilized ova in cold storage with little or no possibility of winding up as toddlers.
So for giggles this AM I ate my Lucky Charms reading some pathetic site called PUNKASSBLOG. I wrote a rather calm comment to the effect that we’re not afraid of Amanda, we’re laughing at her. Apparently I picked the right venue, because as I was posting Amanda herself came in with the brilliant trenchant observation of, “Hey, I made fun of burquas once. Why aren’t they mad about that?”
Well, as it’s been an hour and the moderator hasn’t sween fit to post my original comment, I guess I’ll respond here.
Why don’t we care about insulting burquas, my dear? (bet that would piss her off!) Because it’s not my fight. But your euphemism of choice for Christians, Godbags, is my fight. And your shrill reaction to flame the Duke lacrosse team, and to insult their female counterparts for supporting their friends is a fight I want to be in.
Furthermore, it is your right to post the most blasphemous ravings your sweet little heart desires. But, when you want to get a real gig, remember: the internet is forever. Deleting your posts ain’t gonna cut it. And you’re not the victim, you’re being outed like a closeted gay congressman. Enjoying it?
What did Buckley say? I thought they murdered him in Lebanon anyway.
Don’t confuse them with those sloshy old facts.
Dale,
Punkass is her butt-boy.
NTTAWWT
I can’t seem to find what K-Lo said to inspire that screed to begin with. All I’m seeing re: Plan B is the recitation of Mandy’s willfully obscene and inflammatory wishful vision/version of the immaculate conception.
Anybody?
Oh, and this is just plain funny.
For myself, I have some doubts about the merits of focusing this attention on Amanda, at least this early. I wonder about whether or not it would have been a more instructive and visible point of discussion, had this gone unmentioned for a few months. As it is, this will die early, and ultimately sweep the entire issue (the dangerous proximity of senior Democratic leadership and loons) under the rug, forgotten by July.
And the sad part is that, if the Catholic League is succesful in their campaign against Marcotte, it’ll likely only (in her mind) confirm her worldview of white male hegemony…
Cycle of violen…er, bad philosophy.
Dan,
NTTAWWT indeed.
The aforementioned blog is hysterical. The think that it is the overwhelming superiority of liberal ideas that is driving the results of 2006. They are taking over the US one tinfoil-hat at a time.
In the end, it’s up to the boss, right? The rich, white southern godbag boss…
This end has always been inevitable. What I can’t wait for is her deconstruction of it.
I think that you have a good point, BRD, but it’s closing the barn door.
Pablo, I’m with you! Ultimately I’m less interested in how this came about and more fascinated by the fallout. What I expect is that the usual suspects will vilify the right blogosphere for “attacking” and “stalking” poor Amanda, ruining her opportunity to have a job in mainstream politics because of her outspoken views on issues. There will be screechings about “style court” with numerous examples of right wing perfidy (no doubt including a certain smacking exercise) followed by self satisfied cries of HYPOCRISY! Mix in some shots at the Catholic League and some heartfelt, profanity laced rants about Amanda’s views being irrelevant to her job and you have a foaming concoction sure to provide us with weeks of entertainment.
The key conclusion: Anyone who is hired by a campaign for the express purpose of crafting a candidate’s message in some form is subject to scrutiny, just as Jeff or Patterico or Ed would be vetted if they were called upon to provide campaign content and, by implication, some editorial control over said content.
Amanda and Melanie have just had a real world experience. Unlike the freewheeling but relatively insular universe of blogging, any crafting of a mainstream political message opens one up to scrutiny.
Deal.
BRD–
I hear you, but in point of fact it creates a problem for everyone whose strategy is reaching out to the nutroots early, then moving toward the middle later.
Just Wow. This is quite a stir you guys have caused, isn’t it? The most enjoyable aspect of all of this, at least for me, is seeing the people defending her classify this as “wingnuts slinging mud”. It’s her own delusional rantings folks are pointing out!
In my best Banya voice….
Sorta kinda. Seems like it has always been up to whether or not the story was picked up by the media Edwards reads.
BJ,
Actually, that’s pretty damned funny too. For the thousands of words that the sinistrophere will expend blaming it on wingnuts, misogynists, fascists and godbags of various stripes, it really all comes down to one preordained fact noted some time ago by an anonymous but astute friend of Ms. Marcotte’s:
And so it is. Sadly, the fame clock reads something like 14:30, because saying crazy shit and running for President really don’t mix very well.
My god, who gives a fuck?
Have times gotten so rough for you bedwetters that THIS is what gets you frothy in the morning? Is this the only way to get the attention you think you deserve? Writing post after post about a nobody who said some ugly things? Pathetic. The purposefully offensive and juvenile tone is the blog equivalent of standing up and waving your hands while shouting “look over here! look at me! I’m using harsh language! Any my pee pee is HUGE!”
I think I know why you are so exercised… This site wasn’t directly involved in the blogwar. Not enough trolls stopped by to electrify the group-wank, eh? Nobody came to play. I can tell you the blogwar looks a little, well, one sided from over here.
Well, I’m here as a public service for the understimulated armchair generals at PW. Fire away, boys!
I think BJ here is pointing to the likely direction things are heading. How long before the “real world” kicks in and J-schools and PoliSci programs begin establishing coursework to promulgate blogging “best practices” and initiate an organization which can certify the competency of bloggers vis-a-vis professional advocacy and campaign positions?
Ah, Nick Banya (laff!)
My town has a big Catholic population and you’d better believe that the folks ‘round here are gonna get mighty pissed real soon…
Did you hear a squeaking noise?
Like the Charlotte Observer? Which, by the way, has not listed the story in their online breaking news (which includes the indictment of a PA state senator fer cryin’ out loud!)
Hmmmmmmmmmmm…
I thought you farted.
Edwards can’t discriminate between the New York Times and papal writ. So to speak.
I would like to be the first to thank heet for his scholarly and erudite concern over the direction and interest of this site and those who comment herein.
I would like to request that heet provide us with a real E-Mail address so that we might allow him to vet all future topics to insure that they meet the “My god, who gives a fuck? “ standard that will eschew said editor from having to come here and “…as a public service for the understimulated armchair generals at PW…” rescue us from our own irrelevance.
BTW: Were you, at one time, Amanda’s critical writing instructor? The similarities are breathtaking…
Why BJ, you want my real email address? Sweetheart, if you want to ask me on a date, you can do so in the comments here. I don’t mind.
Michelle Malkin brings more salt to the breakfast table.
I’m really going to be sad to see this end. So much comedy we’ll never see…
Heet—My god, who gives a fuck?
Ah, the sign of the gored lefty, pretending the issue is obsolete or unimportant.
One presumes this means they’ll stop complaining about Ann Coulter now…
Top line, Slartibartfast.
tw both21 I swear officer, I thought they were
Anyone feel grave disappointment that heet was the first troll to respond to this?
I think someone needs to see his therapist, stat!
Pablo:
That just may be one of the funniest things I have ever seen. (now where’s my delete key? YEEAARGH!)
GMG;
BWAAAAAA HAHAHAHA Good one!
I’m gonna guess John Edwards!
heet projected with:
It’s those other people, eh? Riiiiiiight.
Not grave disappointment, no. A sort of nagging unease, a feeling that there must be more to life. A passing curiosity as to where the little wanker has been hiding out recently.
But not really grave disappoinment.
Mind you, you have to admire his witty comeback at BJTexs; you can’t learn that kind of thing, you have to be born with it. Pure gold.
So heet thinks it’s awful that a bunch of people are laughing about a certain loon’s looniness biting her on the ass? Whatever.
furriskey;
To think that I spotted him/her/it “scholarly and erudite” and they trumped me with gobsmacking irony.
Education; the other white meat.
I have already written that I don’t care whether Amanda gets canned. I have also written that I don’t begrudge her the fact of her opinions.
What I find loathesome are both the content of the opinions and the means by which she “defends” them: deleting comments, attacking personally those who offer counterarguments (which are generally deleted, leaving only the attacks to stand), and refusing to open herself up to any intellectual scrutiny—something she manages by turning every debate on substance into a debate over character.
This is her familiar dodge, and it—moreso than naughty language—is what gives bloggers in toto a bad name. If you think the MSM isn’t enjoying the opportunity to broadbrush all bloggers with the distilled and concentrated hatred and intellectual dishonesty of Marcotte, you are crazy.
In the end, Edwards’ hiring of Marcotte not only weakens his candidacy, but it weakens the credibility of bloggers in general.
And no, not because Amanda has a potty mouth or is a rhetorical bomb thrower. But rather because she is a cowardly potty mouth and an ineffective rhetorical bomb thrower—her posts always full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Sorry, but there is nothing worse than someone who won’t take responsibility for their own words. If Marcotte believes the Duke 3 guilty of rape, she should say so—then follow that up with the observation that her views on that case don’t reflect the views of her employer, just as her employer doesn’t share her views that women and blacks are treated as subhumans in NC, or that Catholics reproduce like rabbits because they’ve been brainwashed by a Catholic Church that doesn’t believe in its own teachings, but is instead as cynical and small of soul as Amanda herself is.
At least then she would have held onto a shred of dignity. But as I’ve noted several times now, Marcotte’s entire schtick is to locate bad faith in every opponent she chooses to tangle with, then proceed from that bad faith.
This assignation of intent by fiat—a maneuver that allows her to torch strawmen with the same frequency she tortures English—is what has won her admirers in the land of groupthink, where cadres of the likeminded gather to be rationalize their views, in the process using sheer numbers and wilful blindness to bully truth and keep logic at bay.
And in the final analysis, this is what is going to sink her: because now there’s no where to hide, no way she can delete the stories appearing in the MSM, and no way she can control the terms of the debate.
Her insular world of intellectual dishonesty, propped up as it was by those who were so busy currying her favor they never once stopped to point out their Emperor was naked, is being pressured from without.
She will blame the rightwing smear machine and the jealousy of her detractors for her downfall. But this will just be more Marcotte projection. Because the truth is, she should be looking critically at all the commenters who cheered on her idiocy over the years, who sniggered at her tendentiousness or at her arguments built on nothing but hot sand, and never once challenged her, so eager were they for Amanda’s approval, and so fearful were they of being excommunicated and labeled heretics.
Let her keep her job, for all I care. She already has a God complex. Why allow her the satisfaction of being a martyr, as well?
But make no mistake about it: all the glowing reviews of Marcotte’s intelligence coming from the left side of the blogosphere is utter horseshit. And most of them know it.
They just stick together better than those on the right do. For good or for ill.
Well, what attracted both Amanda and the other one to Edwards in the first place was his ability to say “I was wrong.”
–
I’ve been cautious to add to the firestorm, in a ‘reasoned and sensible’ way, I think. Which is to say, get ‘em riled up with a polite but antithetical statement.
Oh, my. Someone said she was intelligent? That’s truly funny.
It will also be a very long time before she stops being John Edwards’ former chief campaign blogger.
There’s nothing good, nor honest about it, Jeff. There’s also nothing tolerant, nor charitable, nor kind, nor compassionate. There’s no value in it whatsoever.
There are two Americas. There’s the proud, moral one and there’s the bitter, spiteful one.
Yes, I’m quoting myself. But only to say that if someone said that, it explains one hell of a lot about the left side of the blogosphere.
I think it was she who said she was intelligent.
And now I would ask you all to reflect for a moment, in silence, on what this will mean to Amanda’s acolytes.
Jack “Fat Boy” Goff, for example.
What will become of him now? The very foundations (the substantial foundations, presumably) of his “world” are being rocked by the intrusion of reality.
God Bless us all, every one!
Stupid reality. And I would have dialectized my way out of it, too, if it hadn’t been for those meddling bloggers.
He will be ok. Nothing a couple of Bong hits couldnt remedy.
“In the end, Edwards’ hiring of Marcotte not only weakens his candidacy, but it weakens the credibility of bloggers in general.”
Very true Jeff, just what mainstream media wants, a chance to discredit the blogosphere. Kind of sad though, I was looking forward to the upcoming trainwreck of a blog the Edwards site was to become.
Maybe he will keep her? I really enjoyed the last week….
Are you talking about the time Buckley called Vidal a fag back in 1969?
I mean, err, “queer”.
Naturally. Among the appearances-centric “progressive” Left, cleverness is often confused with intelligence. In fact, it’s the lack of higher human dimensions that concentrates the other two so corrosively, creating the appearance of intelligence where only clever, competitive wordplay exists.
What nobody has ever accused Marcotte of is wisdom.
heet: I wouldn’t waste the gerbils. Not fucking worth it.
Dan: You know I hate Mixed Fruit jelly…
Actually, there are more than twice as many Catholics (25.9%), as African-Americans (12.1%), overlap notwithstanding.
Are you talking about the time Buckley called Vidal a fag back in 1969?
No, I was talking about NR’s editorial railing against integration in the South, back in 1957 or so. I linked to it, even. Which, on second look, hasn’t positively been linked to Buckley after all.
So, scratch that, and reassign to National Review. Same effect; different target.
Well, didn’t link to it; rather I linked to an article discussing it.
heet,
After reading your little tirade, does this mean that everything written about Karl Rove – an employee of the elect Bush/Cheney campaign – is just as devoid & baseless as you imply the fisking of Amanda’s writing is? Or do those standards apply only to people out right debase & mock popular religions, motherhood or the falsely accused?
Save your moral outrage & join the fun