You know, that entire last paragraph is the exact kind of unsubstantiated allegations that gets bloggers into trouble in the first place.
What gets us into trouble is a Presidential candidate who hires bloggers and then a week later piously 'weighs their fate' in the face of the fact that they wrote curse words on the internet before they were hired.
Yes but isn't this more about the ability of bloggers to transition into professional campaigning?
This is about the far right saying "boo" and Edwards screaming.
crystal clear that the blogrrlss are not setting policy and have a largely technical job and not back down.
you'd be surprised at how little the MSM understands blogs.
exhibit A. Lanny Davis dumpster diving against Lamont.
provocative language is the norm - look at Matt's post here.
Is it more provocative than dead tree journalism - yes. Is it all true? probably not - that's just how blogs are.
Amen.
What percentage of full-time political operatives use hard language? I assume that the number is between 99.5 and 100%.
The correct response to reporters' inquiries about Marcotte is among the following:
1) Yes, we are proud to have her. Obviously, our communications team will run a different sort of operation than a personal blog with an occasionally rough edge, and our family-friendly editorial guidelines will differ in a common-sense manner.
2) General Patton said that an army without profanity cannot fight its way out of a piss-soaked paper bag. I have already revered the military, and we will try to maintain military-style discipline on some of the projects we will be doing.
3) I will instruct my entire communications staff not to use Vice-President Cheney's Senate-floor lexicon or firearms management style in their activities on my campaign.
4) Some have argued that those who use profanity should never work again in this country. We tried to get Dick Cheney fired two years ago, but the people of the United States thought he should keep working. Pity.
5) This is of course a non-issue on a slow news week. If you think that what Ms. Marcotte wrote was provocative, wait until you see what our team will do in the next 8 weeks!
6) I am trying to figure out who's more scared of Ms. Marcotte - Joe Biden or Sam Brownback? She is the kind of smart hire that the United States can expect from me, always.
7) Oh go f&&& yourself.
"already"="always"
I like number 4.
Somebody get this guy a job on a communications team!
Except for the Patton reference, I agree with that.
Boy I hate to get into semantics and ultra-granularity, but "weighing their fate" were the words of the reporter, not the spokeswoman. Whatever the spokeswoman said might or might not have been all that pious. Presenting only as such is a bit disingenuous, don't you think?
I understand that while we can't expect perfection from any candidate, we have to push them wherever they mess up. But this is another thing alltogether, inventing a narrative that John Edwards went from darling of the blogosphere (false) to despised enemy of the progressive netroots.
He got caught up in a bad story on the Iran comments, and since then, including the interview with Jonathan in the front-page post right after this one, he has explained in a clear and unambiguous way his take on dealing with Iran and the Middle East at-large. And it's been far more satisfactory to me than anyone else out there, and really, more importantly, in line with what I think is the right thing to do.
You put out unsubstantiated rumors about people in New Orleans dogging Edwards, gratuitously at that, as it was unnecessary to make your point of the diary. But it's just not true. Edwards has been to NOLA multiple times, engaged in real work and not just photo-ops. He announced from there because it fit his campaign narrative, but NOLA hasn't been a prop for the campaign, but instead part of the whole reason why he's running.
There are lots of things that get bloggers and presidential candidates into trouble, this is an emergent synergy between some expressions of technology and communication and politics and human relations. There are going to be bumpy roads, but expecting perfection here is like expecting ideological purity - it doesn't happen and it demeans the expector and the expectee. Trying to weave it into a larger story that rings false just isn't cool to me.
Excuse me, Matt, but are you taking Nedra Pickler's words to be those of Jennifer Palmieri?
is not a Palimeri quote, it's from the journalist. Given she wrote the article in the way she did, I'm not sure I trust her reading of what she was told.
