John Edwards, You Suck

Well, Amanda, and more importantly Melissa, aren't fired after all....48 hours after Edwards should've made a principled stand and said he wouldn't buckle to the evil-minded whines of people like Donahue and Malkin, who are more bigoted than Shakes's Sis could ever even imagine, Edwards issued this:

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.

John, if it's all about that four letter word, you've not only said it you've done it as well, so spare us the sanctimonious faux-statesman bullshit. By all means, blast off at Amanda Marcotte in private, she may actually deserve a little warning about her "tude" while helping a presidential campaign - even though everything before was on her own time and her own dime. But Melissa? No. Nothing she's said has been problemmatic enough for the Right to do anything more than try to attack her with the broad tar-brush they were using on Amanda without ever actually managing to get down to specifics about her supposed crimes.

Those last two lines of your statement are pure polispeak, you spineless worm. By delaying telling the odious Donahue and Malkin to go stick it where the sun don't shine by even a minute, you allowed them to hijack the debate. That Amanda and Melissa should have to put their names to apologies to the bigots and attack-dogs of the uber-right in order to keep their jobs is even more sickening. The bigots appear to have hijacked your "discipline, focus and courage" too.

Various important progressive bloggers like Greenwald and Bowers, inflated with a sense of their own importance and ever mindful that they hope to feed at the same trough as you and other corporatist Demlicans, are falling over themselves to say you "didn't cave". Bullshit. So you didn't sack the girls. You didn't tell Donahue to take a flying f**k at himself either. Triangulation....

'Scuse me while I use Lysol to get the gooey double-talk facial you just gave us all out of my eyes.

Over at the HuffPost, you will find some good advice, John:

Edwards needs to get on TV and decry those who made his staff decisions an issue. He needs to stand by Marcotte, McEwan and the netroots in a visible way. He needs to demand answers from the journalists who ran unconfirmed and unsourced stories that gave steam to this disastrous standoff. Most importantly, Edwards needs to make clear that he stands with the netroots and with his campaign staff 100% - a fact that will not change, as much as the Right wants it to.

Edwards has the opportunity to use his bully pulpit to wage real warfare against the type of smear attack perpetrated over the last few days. If he does so, he will succeed at confirming every objection liberal bloggers have raised against shoddy media coverage and inaccurate reporting about blogs. He will give the netroots cover to push even harder against rightwing blogs and the Republican staffers with truly ignominious ties. He will create an atmosphere that makes it likely that a rightwing attack like this on the liberal blogosphere and on Democratic presidential campaigns can never succeed.

Do all that, John, and I will publicly apologise to you for this post. But I don't think you will - I think you just want to quiet the yelling and hope it all goes away.

You're not worth working for and definitely not worth voting for. I've seen it all before in one single man - Tony Blair. Like him, you're a conservative in progressive clothing with a glib smile and a finely tuned sense of how to walk the fence and please most of the people most of the time...until elected. Just another corporate Demlican trying hard to pretend you're a progressive so you get all those free volunteers and some nice contributions. I'm not fooled, John. You suck!