Statement on Campaign Bloggers
John Edwards in News Feed of
2/08/2007 at 11:36 AM EST
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. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that kind of intolerant language will not be permitted from anyone on my campaign, whether it's intended as satire, humor, or anything else. But I also believe in giving everyone a fair shake. I've talked to Amanda and Melissa; they have both assured me that it was never their intention to malign anyone's faith, and I take them at their word. We're beginning a great debate about the future of our country, and we can't let it be hijacked. It will take discipline, focus, and courage to build the America we believe in.
Also, what Gavin said, though I prefer to express it in
I don't care if you're full.
EITHER YOU'RE STUPID OR DISHONEST, AND I'M SICK OF TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHICH IT IS, IF IN FACT IT ISN'T BOTH - AN UPDATE: Sure enough, I have a commenter doing the old stick-fingers-in-ears, pretend-can't-hear-you, keep-repeating-same-lines-as-though-that-will-make-them-true maneuver:
What accounts for Amanda's hatred? She seems deeply engrossed in theological issues like "Limbo."
She seem highly perturbed and demonstrates a white hit pursuit of Roman Catholic teaching.
Has she ever expressed religious beliefs of her own? Maybe she on the road to Damascus.
This will not be lived down. Wait till Hillary's guys Carville (a Catholic) and Begala (I think he's catholic, too) get ahold of this.
Johnny-boy, you just might need to get back to channelling dead babies in the courtroom.
"If we just keep saying this will hurt Edwards, maybe it really WILL hurt Edwards" is the refrain of the week, because saying so makes it true if you absolutely under no circumstances EVER QUIT SAYING IT. But never mind--let me deal now with this whole "But wasn't what Amanda said very offensive to Catholics?" thing once and for all.
Oh, wait; I already did that today. Well, if repeating things often enough helps them sink in--
Professor Blather, try a little reading yourself. This very post, for example:
One imagines that the next notion down the pike is going to be that Allah was merely writing satire. And indeed, normally, we’d be down with that. But when you read the Hot Air piece in all its switchbacks and updates, you find that Allah and Bryan have already carefully blocked that exit, doing a #2 woo-woo war dance of outrage over the notion that Amanda’s writing should be taken at anything but than face value.
The problem is not that anyone here fails to recognize parody. The problem is that the bloggers at Hot Air fail to recognize satire or context. And the context of Amanda’s post that Allahpundit is clutching his pearls over is a debunking of the misinformation on birth control that a Catholic premarital seminar was providing–and I’m being charitable by calling it “misinformation.” “Boldfaced lying about how birth control pills work” would be more accurate. Amanda’s weapon of choice against that nonsense was satire. Cribbing from the definition helpfully provided by Sean in another thread:
1.a. A work or composition in prose or verse which (usu. humorously) exposes prevailing vices or follies or ridicules an (esp. prominent) individual; a lampoon; a performance or broadcast of a similar nature.
Here’s the best part: Allahpundit, Preston, and even the crazy one all know this. Normally–that is, if no political hay were to be made off Edwards hiring Amanda–they’d even agree with Amanda that the Catholic church’s teachings on birth control are pretty backward (when they’re not outright false). I mean, last I checked, not one of them was the father of seven good Catholic children.
I’m tired of this sudden conservative genius for missing the point. You guys are not actually that stupid. You know damn well what the point was–with Amanda’s post as well as with what Gavin did here, which was to show that the standard ol’ Cuckoo for Cockopuffs tries to apply to Amanda’s writing doesn’t work when it’s applied to his ideological cronies, and therefore likely doesn’t work applied to Amanda either.
Now if you’d just quit trying to play the rest of us for fools, that would be fabulous.
--then maybe reposting it here will help.
See, the problem is, someone reminded Sadly, No! of an old post Allah wrote that was a little harsh on some Catholic practices. The things is, "Allah" was a character, a parody of a deity gone mad for jihad, and so duh, of course the Muslim deity is going to think transubstantiation is a nutso doctrine. All fine, all good--it's a parody, and the Catholic-bashing is being used in the service of the parody, and the point of the parody is to make fun of jihadists, and if we can't make fun of people who blow up shit for Allah then I don't know what we could possibly have left to laugh at, honestly. Now please pardon me a minute while I whip out the bold and the caps in a futile attempt to prevent another tidal wave of stupidity-or-dishonesty-or-both from crashing down on my poor head:
EVERYONE GETS THAT IT'S A PARODY. NO ONE, NOT ONE PERSON, IS CONFUSED BY ALLAHPUNDIT'S POST. AND SHOULD I BE MISTAKEN ABOUT THAT, IF THERE IN FACT DOES EXIST THAT ONE PERSON, I HEREBY DENOUNCE THAT PERSON. I HEAR YOU GUYS REALLY DIG THE DENUCIATIONS, SO PLEASE CONSIDER THIS MY DENUNCIATION OF ANYONE WHO DOESN'T GET THAT ALLAHPUNDIT WAS TOTALLY FUCKING KIDDING.
So why do I bring all this up? Simple: Because there's that stupid-or-dishonest thing again, in which what appears to be nearly the entire right side of the blogosphere is suddenly pretending not to notice WHY Amanda wrote mean, nasty things about the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary (something that, thankfully, none of them ever do, and certainly none of them ever yuk it up about how fuckable the Blessed Mother is), and I'll bet it is not really going to surprise any of my readers to learn that she did it for a similar reason: To make fun of something stupid. And, people, excommunicate me now if you must, but let's not kid ourselves about this: The Catholic church's teaching on contraception is stupid. It's so stupid that very few Catholics even pretend to follow it.
But not only is it a little stupid, some of it's dishonest. Telling lies about how birth control pills work?--I'm not putting that down to stupidity; that one gets marked in the dishonesty column.
And for pointing this out, for attending a Catholic seminar that peddled this birth-control-pill-as-abortifacent dishonesty, and then for coming home and posting about it, observing that lying about the way oral contraceptives work is harmful to women,--for that, well. You saw the results this week. Amanda hates God, she hates you for loving God, she hates all religions everWHAR!!!
This, mind you, from a guy who did an entire blog using the Muslim deity as a spoof character, who had to explain that he didn't really hate Muslims, he just hated Muslims who were prone to blowing things up. Funny thing: So do I. So do most people. So we're cool, right?
Except not really, because if what you want is to make fun of Muslims who blow things up, it might be better to title the blog "Osamapundit," you know, after a Muslim who enjoys blowing things up, instead of using the name of the god all the Muslims who DON'T blow things up ALSO WORSHIP. And since this is bound to come up, because there are no limits in the game of cake or death, or excuse me, stupid or dishonest, note that this blog is called Jesus's General, not "Jesuspundit" or "Jesus is in the House."
None of this is actually difficult to figure out, so I apologize for boring you all with it. I don't know what happened. I DO know that this rant will hereafter serve as my only explanation for why your dumbass Amanda-hates-Catholics comment disappeared from this blog (or, for that matter, from any posts I author at Pandagon): Your comment disappeared and your dissent was cruelly crushed along with it because it was either stupid or dishonest, and I'm not very fond of either quality. The end. Good NIGHT. And for fuck's sake, stop whining.
18 comments:
Victory is victory, but poor planning on Edwards' part not to be researched and ready with a response to what the wingnuts would inevitably attempt, you know? I hate the part of politics that requires people to apologize for their humanity and try to modify it somehow. I wish they could both say, "We have opinions. You may disagree. Suck it."
I felt like I was chewing a mouthful of shit just reading the, "I'm sorry if I offended anyone..." I liked their reality, and wish Edwards had gotten his balls outta his purse and defended that. I guess you don't win votes without some mealy-mouthed apologizing. Sigh.
Edwards said ...it was never their intention to malign anyone's faith...
Leaving two alternatives:
A) He's stupid enough to believe that.
or
B) He thinks we're stupid enough to believe it.
Neither one is going to get him my vote.
I've seen your comments at Protein Wisdom, buddy, so don't come over here and act like I'm stupid enough to believe he was ever going to get your vote.
And this particular Catholic does not feel her faith has been maligned, but I guess mileage varies.
You'd better put all your eggs in one basket.
Although I'm more or less an atheist, I actually find religion to be the one topic on which I don't much care for Amanda's writing. I think her wholesale rejection of religion, and specifically Christianity, is crude and naive, and she often comes across, to my ears at least, as shrill and self-congratulatory. And that's just from an intellectual/aesthetic point of view; I also thought it was unwise and unfortunate for such a compelling progressive writer to alienate so many potential readers with her eagerness to hoot at religion. And I say this as someone who, if I had to pick one commenter on politics and social issues to read, would very likely pick Amanda (or would have--I don't know what her posts for Edwards will look like, especially now). I'm obviously not suggesting that she should be fired or even reprimanded over this, but, for what it's worth, I can see why people are less than impressed.
Of course, if they're angry at people who disrespect their faith, especially in politics, they must hate proponents of the death penalty and of "pre-emptive war," and...well, you know where I'm going with this.
Anyone who, after what's happened in this country and abroad the last six years, would seriously base their vote on comments by a candidate's lead blogger is a complete and incomparably blithering idiot.
What accounts for Amanda's hatred? She seems deeply engrossed in theological issues like "Limbo."
She seem highly perturbed and demonstrates a white hit pursuit of Roman Catholic teaching.
Has she ever expressed religious beliefs of her own? Maybe she on the road to Damascus.
This will not be lived down. Wait till Hillary's guys Carville (a Catholic) and Begala (I think he's catholic, too) get ahold of this.
Johnny-boy, you just might need to get back to channelling dead babies in the courtroom.
I'm glad you made that point about this Allahpundit asshole. Another important distinction: Amanda isn't a slavish and mindless cheerleader for a government that has launched an invasion of a largely Catholic country that has killed well over half a million people. But I'm sure this jackass really values the lives of brown Muslims every bit as much as those of white Christians.
Now Malkin is trying to pretend this is just what she wanted? Yeah, that's why you devoted two weeks of your miserable little life to trying to get Amanda fired. What a loathsome little toadstool. The thing is, though, thsi kind of dishonesty is scary because that's clearly how large parts of the Bush administration operate. Just pretend like everything's going our way, no matter what happens, no matter hwo obviously contrary to what we were saying yesterday it is.
Oh, and if HRC, already hated and distrusted by all but the most soulless Democratic Party appartchiks, tried to make political hay out of this, she would be torn to shreds. Besides, she's too smart to start squawking over freaking campaign bloggers.
Well, I disagree with the some of the larger points, but...the choice of rebuttal was superb.
Nerd form indeed :)
Ilyka,
Hey, ace from around the block here.
I'm just curious. You and many of Marcotte's defenders seem to be using the word "satirical" as perfectly interchangable with "ironical."
You know they're not really the same, right? Marcotte's postings are "satirical" in the sense she's trying to be funny (but not really succeeding, IMHO) in attacking precisely what it seems she is attacking.
Allah Pundit, on the other hand, is being ironical in attacking not what he is superficially attacking -- Jews, Christians, the West -- but actually attacking Muslim extremists.
Same dealio with Jesus' General, I guess, though he's lame.
As you get to pointing out, one may knock Allah for not being "sensitive" enough to Muslims, but you do realize the two cases are sort of different?
Not really a complaint with you so much as what appears to me to be a campaign by the entire left of the blogosphere to pretend "satirical" means "ironical" like the rest of us are too f'ing dumb to know the actual meanings.
Ace: My guess is, Ilyka points out that "ironical" isn't a word (it's "ironic") and ignores your point. And deletes my comment.
Terrific, Manuel. I can't take a couple days off the blog without you forming a conspiracy about it. Actually, I appreciate Ace's point and I appreciate even more that he wasn't a dick about making it. You should try that sometime.
Further, I think Ace is using "ironical" in the, ah, ironical sense. Good grief. But enough of your stupidity, Manuel.
You know they're not really the same, right? Marcotte's postings are "satirical" in the sense she's trying to be funny (but not really succeeding, IMHO) in attacking precisely what it seems she is attacking.
I think that's fair. Without getting into a dictionary battle over irony versus satire, the problem I'm having is with all the religious freaks who excerpted the picture caption about the Virgin Mary and let it be assumed by their readers that such was the whole point of Amanda's post, and that therefore, Amanda hates Catholics. It wasn't the point, obviously--the point was to criticize the Church for distributing false information about contraception.
Do I think her point about that would have been better made without that particular joke? Yes, I do. But I'm not Amanda, and the whole point's moot now that she's resigned anyway.
"If it's getting cold, reheat it."
yeah, that is rather appropriate, isn't it...
heraclitus: i am with you pretty much on that, am not generally impressed with "taking a piss on religion" (as she's put it) for the sake of it. no, it's not the sort of "hatred" the squawkers are squawking about, but it's never been exactly great for winning friends and influencing people. i mean, if that's how you feel, then that's how you feel; just, i for one would much rather be trying to make alliances with the religious left (which includes some truly amazing people whose voices would be really, really great to have) than just battening down the hatches for more Hatfield & McCoy.
all the same, after all this crap, one gets a better idea of -why- a lot of people develop a kneejerk suspicion of all things smacking of religion.
"spiritual abuse" is a term that maybe hasn't gotten enough headway.
and dragging Melissa in after it, as though she & Amanda were interchangeable on this topic (or any other). was just ridiculous.
as for all the self-professed Christians calling for rape, death, and other charming sentiments,
"by their fruits you will know them"
and
"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven..."
I hate the part of politics that requires people to apologize for their humanity and try to modify it somehow. I wish they could both say, "We have opinions. You may disagree. Suck it."
I felt like I was chewing a mouthful of shit just reading the, "I'm sorry if I offended anyone...
yeah. i really wish he could've just said something like, "Those are not my personal sentiments, at all; nonetheless, I hired this person for a reason, I do not believe she is a hater, and Donohue might wish to examine the beam in his own eye before going after the mote of a newly-hired blogger. I do not wish to offend people of faith, but these people are not acting in good faith, in any sense of the term, and i have no more time for them. End of discussion."
o well.
"If it's getting cold, reheat it."
yeah, that is rather appropriate, isn't it...
Oh yes, you can microwave this over and over and over again. It never seems to lose its magical deliciousness.
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