Wednesday, February 7, 2007

A thought about Amanda Marcotte

Amanda Marcotte, who was hired by the John Edwards campaign as a blogger, has a long history of intolerant and misandrist postings, "liberally" (pardon the pun) laced with language that puts me—a former sailor—to shame. When some of her previous offerings were widely circulated in an effort to raise her visibility, bloggers on the left were quick to cry foul. "It's her personal blog, not John Edwards's" or "You're cherry-picking and taking comments out of context". Both excuses are non-operative.

Several well-known right-of-center bloggers have been sacked for their private blog postings— Bill Hobbs is probably the best-known example, but I know of at least one other blogger who took down his blog after a rival of his boss threatened to use the blogger's posts against the boss (rather than against the blogger himself). Additionally, Chad Dotson (who ran the now-defunct Commonwealth Conservative) was targeted because of his postings; admittedly, he was posting from work on government time.

As to the "out of context" meme, quoting entire posts is not taking anything out of context. "Out of context" is usually the last refuge of the "Oops, I got caught with my pants down" crowd. The only context that is missing from such posts is the mindset that it is acceptable to use vile and derogatory language only if the target is a Republican or other conservative. Most of the people who are squawking the loudest are the same people who tut-tutted Dick Cheney's f-bomb towards the duplicitous Patrick Leahy, or Bush's unguarded and careless "major-league a**hole" comment about New York Times reporter Adam Clymer.

There are lefty bloggers out there that are reasonable and temperate, but they are few and far between. Kevin Drum is one of them, but his commenters are typical feverish ranters like one would find on Daily Kos or Democratic Underground (no links for them). Brad DeLong is another, and his commenters are relatively sane. Either of these gentlemen (whose liberal credentials are impeccable) would have been a better choice than Ms. Marcotte (although it would have been an issue for Professor DeLong, who is a public university professor). Almost anyone in the left side of the blogosphere would have been a better choice than Ms. Marcotte, but for whatever reason, she was the choice of the Edwards team, and it may well prove to be a decisive hit on the campaign. If he doesn't repudiate her posts, no informed and devout Catholics will vote for him, and if he does repudiate her, the "nutroots" will be up in arms about the issue. It's a no-win situtation for Edwards, and it will be interesting to see how it plays out over the next week or so.

posted at 07:12 PM | permalink | Comments (2)

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

I'm ba----ack.

For anyone who is still reading, I received my DD-214 today. This is my official statement of service, the one that says that I am "U.S. Navy, retired". (My actual retirement date was last Wednesday, but since I am in Florida, the DD-214 had to be mailed to me, which took a couple of days.) What a strange 20 years it has been...

I will be moving to Gainesville, Florida next week. I had hoped to have been moved by this point, but I had a few hiccups which delayed my move for about three weeks. I will be back to posting daily after the end of February, once I am moved and unpacked and settled in. I will be severely updating and pruning the blogroll, and will change my bio and picture (which is 4 years and about 35 extra pounds out of date). I've actually had a lot to say, but was way too busy getting ready to retire to spend time on blogging.

posted at 04:46 PM | permalink | Comments (3)