"All the average Jane knows is that someone wrote something
inflammatory and insulting to Catholics and put it online, and that
person is now working for the Edwards Campaign. I didn't get the sense
from the left that they were able to put themselves in other people's
shoes when analyzing this controversy.

So let's not lose perspective here. Blogging is still a niche, and
the rules of engagement that you and I understand are lost on the
average American."

I have worked on political campaigns. I've worked the public angle (fairs, rallies, etc), and the private, organizational angle. I've done phone polling, all kinds of stuff. And you know what? My past activities NEVER came up. In fact, no one even ever asked me if i'd done this or that, because they didn't care - i was helping out, and that's what counted.

Did Marcotte and McEwan say some harsh words? you bet. Did they say some things against the catholics? Damn straight. Does it matter a jot? Not really. If you dig into anyone's past, you find countless skeletons buried in the closet. How far back can you go? To college papers, to high school newspaper articles, to debates, to journals, all searching for some trace of controversy, some hint of wrong-doing.

Let's be honest, here: the catholic church isn't really a respectable organization. Between the pedophile scandals, and it's long history of corruption (go ask your local priest about Indulgences), violence, and general abuse of power, it's not even really something I trust. Their stance on birth control has killed a great many people, and cosigned a great many more to lives of misery, as has their stance on divorce. They should - at *every possible juncture* be called out, analyzed, and  dismissed as the lumbering, selfish dinosaur they are.

So far as harsh language goes, that is the sort of thing the religious care about, because larger issues - poverty, crime, etc - are just to hard to deal with, while a couple swear words are easy to fit lots of criticism on. Again, the religious right demonstrates that when faced with real problems, you can always fall back on being a pedantic, moralistic prude to distract people from the burning building around them.

Edwards, for his part, came off like a jackass. Instead of either coming out and saying "hey, i don't give a shit what they've said, their my crew now", he pulls out that he "talked to them" about it, and they've apologized. Way to bend over, edwards. Way to bend over. A man who will not defend his campaign staff, is a man who cannot be trusted. What else will he bend on? And not just to our local powers, but to foreign ones; would he have the balls to stand up and tell Iran or North Korea to go back to their hole, or would he wishy washy about it?

My Hope is that Wes Clark will again run in a serious way, but i fear edwards might get a lot of support, muddying the field.