Bloggate

Just as I think I'm surely done with blogging--surely there are better ways to spend the precious hours on this planet--along comes a story custom-made for the politically left, theologically orthodox, and liturgically rabid right Catholic. If you've been living under a rock for the past week, here's the upshot: Democratic presidential wannabe John Edwards hired a couple of bloggers to work for him, and the story came out through rightwingers Michelle Malkin (to whom I will not link), the professionally and perpetually offended William Donohue, head of the Catholic League, and the NRO (to whom I grudgingly link) that said bloggers, Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, have some unpleasant things to say about Christians in general and Catholics in particular--so unpleasant that I, along with the Associated Press, just won't reprint the very worst of it. (But you can click on that NRO link if you want to see some of the worst. There, I warned you.)

Edwards, after having had these unfortunate statements brought to his attention, decided not to fire the bloggers, instead assuring everyone that he was satisfied that they hadn't meant to give offense (what???), and letting them tell everyone that they were very, very sorry that anyone was so stupid and thin-skinned as to be offended, and now everything's better, right? And the entire liberal internet camp seemed to think it was all defensible anyway because of the sorts of things that Malkin, Coulter, and Limbaugh say, and because Bill Donohue is an offensensitive windbag.

Now besides the fact that no parent in the country considers this (scroll down) to constitute an apology--we're all experts on "I'm sorry that you stood where my arm was swinging" and "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings when I called you butthead"--as a leftie Catholic, the tu quoque response feels a bit like someone punching you in the nose, and then saying it's okay because that guy over there punches him in the nose all the time. I have no interest in listening to rightwing bloviators, and am willing to accept, arguendo, that they have said really offensive things. And I hang my head in shame every time I hear Donohue leaping into the fray to whine about how persecuted us poor Catlicks is. So why does that make it okay to knowingly hire people insult my faith in the most obscene terms, and expect me to suck it up and vote for you?

I really liked Edwards. Back when Bush and Kerry were battling to be the saviors of the middle class, he was the only one mentioning the poor and our country's obligation to them. I do want to talk about health care. I do understand that there are idiotic, filthy mouthed bloggers out there, and don't lose sleep over them, open idiocy being the price of free speech.

But to even think about voting for Edwards, now, would be like a black person thinking of voting for David Duke because you like his position on taxes. Edwards has let me know that he is okay with vile and naked bigotry with me and mine in the cross-hairs, so long as it's just collateral damage in the scorched-earth warfare that passes for political discourse these days.

Are the Democrats really riding so high that they're happy to write off the entire Catholic vote?

Update: Marcotte has resigned, not because of any sudden realization that blunt bigotry was likely to hurt Edwards' nomination chances, but because "I felt that everytime I coughed, I was risking the Edwards campaign." Again, this non-remorse should be familiar to parents everywhere, especially those of us blessed with adolescent daughters: "I can't do anything right! You get mad at me if I even breathe!"