The right got what they wanted, slandered, beaten, bloody and shamed, both Marcotte and *McEwan have quit the campaign. I sincerely hope that John Edwards learns a lesson from this, that people on the right will do literally anything to avoid talking about the issues. This should be a rallying cry from within the campaign to triple all efforts to get out the messages that these people fear, messages of hope and of new ideas, because those are the things that threaten them the most.
I'm sad that both of these women gave in, but let's remember that they didn't exactly surrender. They sacrificed their jobs so that the campaign can move past this, and one hardly need imagine all the hateful mail, accusations, and death threats they have endured over the past few weeks to sympathize with what has happened. I don't doubt that the harassment will continue for some time, and that's a real shame. It really puts an exclamation point on what a giant scumbag Donohue is, and all of the retards that made such a stink over nothing. I mean really, you'd think these people just now discovered that you can say anything you want on a blog and with that freedom inevitably comes things you don't necessarily want to hear.
You can read Melissa's message on resigning over here. Now, on with the news.
Because the manufactured controversy has finally come to a conclusion, unless there's a very good reason for doing so, I won't be linking to anymore blogs or news pieces about this. Maybe one or two here and there, but not like I have been. There probably won't be much news otherwise, so expect light posting for a spell.
Tom Eley writes on Obama's entry into the Democratic candidacy pool for 2008, and of course you should read all about it if you're interested in Obama, but I'm going to nitpick a little here with something I think is disingenuous.
For example, John Edwards-John Kerry's fervently pro-war vice presidential candidate in 2004-has, with considerable media assistance, rather incongruously attempted to stake out an "anti-war" position, calling on his rivals in the US Senate to cut off funding for Bush's escalation, a measure the Democratic congressional leadership has already rejected out of hand.
Couple points here, first being that "incongruous" means lacking in harmony, compatibility, or appropriateness. I don't see how the word applies at all, because John Edwards didn't stake out a position at all, he simply stated that his vote for the war authorization was just plain wrong. That by the way is something no other Democratic candidate has had the guts to so thus far.
Don't even bring up Hillary, please, she's been dancing around the war for far too long and has absolutely no credibility on the issue at this point. "If I were President, I wouldn't have blah blah"? Give me a break here, when she had the opportunity to act, Senator Clinton voted for it. I'm not going to call her an outright liar here, but you simply cannot have it both ways. If the intelligence was baked, then you were a fool for accepting it. If you knew it was baked, then why did you vote for it? It's lose/lose. The only way out is to admit you were wrong.
It's also important to note here that it doesn't matter how spineless Democratic leaders are when it comes to cutting off funding. For one it would be filibustered into oblivion by Republicans in the Senate, so it would be a waste of time, and I readily acknowledge that. But it would also force Republicans into a de facto support of keeping us in that war indefinitely. Something like that would be of tremendous advantage heading into late '08, so let's not jump to the conclusion that just because its off the table today, that doesn't mean it's off the table next year.
Obama has this advantage over Hillary Clinton, Joseph Biden and Edwards: unlike the other leading candidates, all of whom as senators voted in favor of granting Bush authorization to illegally invade Iraq, Obama publicly opposed the invasion while still a state senator in Illinois.
So did Howard Dean, and we all know that while it got his foot in the door, it didn't really give him any kind of advantage. It helped, sure, because virtually everyone else in the race still tacitly supported the war, but that isn't the case today. All Democrats are against the war, and Obama has problems of his own to worry about.
But as I said, this is a soft piece on Obama, so read it with an eye towards that and you'll be fine.
Americanchronicle.com has a piece up supporting Edwards for President, and The Boston Globe has a bit on the campaign hiring a new state campaign manager for New Hampshire.
That's all I've got from the last 24 hours, when you ignore the bloggate stuff, so smoke 'em if you got 'em.
I apologize to McEwan, I've been spelling her last name wrong all this time.
