Noli Irritare Leones

… on the whole Edwards campaign blogger thing. Not Edwards, that is, but me. I suppose I should have said something about it before. Though lately I’ve been more Africa-focused, I started the blog in part to comment on events in the Catholic Church, and one of my running themes has been the interchange between Catholicism (and other varieties of Christianity) and feminism. But the thoughts I’ve had over the past few days have mainly been more about blogging in general, and seemed not too useful when the immediate question was whether Amanda Marcotte (whom I know through her blog and comments, and a little exchange of email) and Melissa McEwan (whom I don’t follow at all) would lose their jobs.

Anyway, for those people who haven’t already followed the whole thing on the various political blogs (and, abundantly though it’s been discussed, I actually think I have some readers who don’t read any of the blogs that have already posted about it), here’s the story as I’ve seen it unfold. I’ll focus mostly on the blogger I’ve actually read, Amanda.

Amanda announced, not long ago, that she had accepted a job as blogmistress for the Edwards campaign. She got people to substitute for her at her regular blog, Pandagon, and headed across the country from Texas to North Carolina.

Not long afterward, a firestorm of criticism started, on various conservative blogs, of Amanda’s appointment. Some of this was bizarre. The first thing I read about was that Michelle Malkin was getting on Amanda’s case over a post made about Katrina. In this post, Amanda used the word fuck, strongly took to task the people who’d given the “they chose to stay” response when the poor got left behind, gave a pointed and accurate explanation of what was wrong with that line of thought, and took to task some of the people complaining about looting as racist.

I’m not sure what a reasonable person was supposed to find wrong with the post – saying “fuck”? Or is it that you should never call anyone racist, unless it’s for supporting affirmative action? Frankly, some of the remarks about looting at the time were racist – people were ready to believe extreme stories about Katrina survivors attacking their rescuers, some of which later turned out to be false. Or to talk as if everyone left in the town was looting TVs and jewelry, when some of the looting was people taking the water and food they needed to survive until help arrived.

At any rate, the post as a whole was both so on target about the abandonment of the poor, and so in keeping with the beliefs Edwards himself expresses in his “Two Americas” speeches (even if he’s not so inclined as Amanda to use words like fuck), that I’d have had no respect for him if he’d fired her over that one. And, as for saying fuck, well, if you can’t say fuck about a fucking disaster like Katrina, and about the fucking bastards who wanted to blame the poor for being left behind with no transportation out, when can you say fuck?

Next came some complaint about a post Amanda had made about the Duke rape trial, and that was weird as well – not the fact that someone would have objected to the post, but the terms of the objection. Apparently now, before the case has even gone to trial, it is so obvious that the accused are innocent, not only of the rape charge that has been withdrawn, but even of the sexual assault charges that are still on the table, that candidates must confine their low to mid level campaign appointments to people who haven’t said they consider the defendants guilty. I mean, it’s OK to say that OJ was guilty – though he was actually acquitted – but it’s not OK at all to say that the defendants in the Duke rape trial are guilty of anything whatsoever. And they may indeed, for all I know, be innocent of anything beyond hiring black strippers and later yelling racial epiphets at them (and, for one guy, sending one really gruesome email). But saying you think they’re guilty is now a fireable offense? And removing one post about them while stating openly that you’re deleting your own post is cover up?

It should be added, here, that, though the case appears to have run into enough difficulties that some reasonable people now think the defendants are most likely innocent, most of the people who have been arguing in the comments of feminist blog on behalf of the defendants haven’t been of that sort. They’ve been inclined to see the accuser as a lying hobag from the get go, and have, in some cases, expressed their views in terms which might reasonably lead the feminist bloggers so trolled to believe that, a) they’re predisposed to see women as lying about rape, and b) they’re all the more predisposed to such a view when the woman complaining is a poor black stripper. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and it may yet be the case that this particular case collapses thoroughly enough that these commenters can see themselves as vindicated (as I’ve said, not having followed the case closely, I hold no firm conviction on the guilt of the defendants). But to the extent that particular commenters are expressing their prejudices, the prejudices remain wrong, even if they should happen to lead to the right conclusion in one case. It should also be mentioned that Amanda is herself a survivor of rape, and particularly sensitized to the wrongs of views of this sort.

Then there were various attacks on Amanda as racist and misandrist, which seems like a “war is peace” style interpretation of Amanda’s objections to racism and sexism. And most of the criticism of Amanda was coming from right wing bloggers who would never have voted for Edwards anyway.

I’m dwelling at length on all the things that made the attacks on Amanda sound outlandish and wrong because it explains what the climate was on the feminist blogs when the attack came that hit hardest. Amanda’s a contentious, sarcastic, often vulgar blogger who pushes many people’s buttons; she’s also a very popular feminist blogger with an A-list blog (while I’m a barely read C-list blogger) and many online friends. It explains why some of Amanda’s friends even now are complaining that Edwards was too weak and should have stood by her more strongly – though I disagree on this score, and think the Edwards campaign response is an appropriate one.

The attack that really hit home: Donohue, of the Catholic League, came out and attacked Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan as having made bigoted anti-Catholic statements on their blogs, and demanded that the Edwards campaign fire them. And at this point, the firestorm hit the New York Times and CNN. This is also the point where my account gets complicated, because, as far as I can tell, all of the following things are true.

• Amanda Marcotte has strong objections specifically to the Catholic Church’s public policy positions on issues related to sexuality: contraception, emergency contraception, abortion, sex education, etc.
• Though an atheist (or follower of the Church of the Mouse and the Disco Ball) herself, she doesn’t much care about people’s beliefs except in so far as they affect public policy. Her quarrel with the Church is intense, but narrow.
• Many actual believing American Catholics share Amanda’s objections to their church’s public policy positions on those particular issues.
• Some actual believing Catholics aren’t particularly offended by her remarks, even when they include vulgar, satirical references to core Catholic beliefs like the Virgin Birth – their areas of religious sensitivity are elsewhere.
• Donohue, of the Catholic League, has himself said grossly offensive things about Jews.
• Some Catholics who are not at all in sympathy with Donohue, who disagree with many of his views, and who are way less conservative and Republican-friendly than he is, nevertheless find statements like the ones that got highlighted offensive.
• Remarks about the Blessed Virgin Mary – who is, from a Catholic point of view, both a really big deal and an actual real person with whom you might still have some sort of relationship – can strike many not particularly conservative Catholics as over the top offensive.
• Remarks about the Blessed Virgin Mary – who is, from the point of view of atheists, just a symbol and a belief, and open to criticism the same as any other symbol and belief – can strike many not particularly hostile non-believers as fair game, and not in the least comparable to actual bigotry, which would involve hateful generalizations about actual groups of people.

Not sure I have time to wrap this up the way I meant to. So I’m going to leave the case of Amanda herself behind, for the more general question of bloggers and political campaigns. Because here’s the other thing: Not all of us who are bloggers are quite as contentious in style as Amanda (though a lot of the most popular political bloggers, right and left, are contentious and opinionated and likely to offend, on one side or another). But we all have years worth of archives, in which many of us have let it hang out, and stated our opinions without having much care for professional decorum. I, for example, am way more Catholic-friendly than Amanda, but I’m not sure what Donohue would say if he got to see my snarkiest blog post ever about the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal. After all, we’re bloggers expressing our personal views, not politicians. If we then move over to political campaigns, on the one hand, the campaigns are entirely entitled to take that record into consideration up front, and decide that some of us are too hot to handle. On the other hand, if they’re going to hire bloggers with established records at all, they’ll have trouble finding ones that don’t have something offensive in their archives. The fact is that most of us, at some time in our lives, say things, not just that other people disagree with, but things that other people find deeply offensive. Many of us say things that will strike others as prejudiced or even bigoted. It may be a statement that the US is a Christian country, or that non-Christians are headed to hell, or even a use of the term “Judeo-Christian” that offends Jews by subsuming them in some set of Christian values that many of them don’t share. Or it may be a joke about how the coast should separate from “Jesusland,” or a snarky remark about priests. Or, as in Biden’s case, a bit of praise that strikes others as too condescending. We all know where the standard on this kind of thing is set for candidates themselves – watch your words carefully. Everything about you – your windsurfing (Kerry), your scream (Dean), your tears at attacks on your wife (Muskie) can be used against you. What will the standard be for bloggers, with years of our half-formed thoughts on display?

This entry was posted on Friday, February 9th, 2007 at 8:54 am and is filed under Election 2008, News and Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.