William Donahue is scared to death of you. He just promised a nationwide campaign to fight the success you have made possible. Ha! Bring it on.

Correction: Ha! Bring it on, fat man.

OK, let's start with this YouTube gem from Donohue.  From the tube:

"Just imagine if a white guy is performing oral sex on a statue of Martin Luther King with an erection. Do you need to see it to know it's ugly?"

Is he a better pornographer than Ken Starr, or a worse one?

HAT TIP to Digby.

I agree with you generally. But, I don't think this is just about this person. This is about the whole right wing swiftboatin' machine. He maybe the example that can start things rolling, but he shouldn't be the last. The only way they will start to play fair is if they realize that not playing fair has consequences.

Chris:

The blogpac tool is very easy to use, and a great addition. You are doing fantastic work here. Thank you.

A couple of ideas:

1) The blogpac tool might be even more useful if 1) you strongly encourage people to personalize the letter somewhere on the page, and 2) if you add an option that separate out the addresses of the news organizations so people can send individualized responses to each institution. As it is, I think the letters might come off as a bit generic. Links could also be provided to each offending story so we can easily see how to target each letter. I know its more programing, and perhaps not possible, but it might be worth thinking about.

2) I think the next step in this campaign needs to be to humiliate one of the reporters who filed one of the offending articles. I know this part isn't pleasant... but there needs to be consequences for publishing this kind of crap. Reporters are used to being able to write anything they want about us and not suffering for it. That needs to change. A concerted effort to humiliate one of the worst offenders would go a long way to doing that.

Thanks again.

It's our turn now, friends.  Edwards did the right thing by keeping the bloggers, but some of us ask too much when we demand that he personally take on Donahue and the other hatemongers.  A candidate can't win by getting into that kind of pissing match with an outsider.  It would be stupid for the same reason that it was stupid for George Allen to let himself get baited by Mike Stark.

It's up to us to take matters from here and it looks like we are more than up to the challenge.

The GOP doesn't even bother challenging Democrats on policy positions and substantive issues; instead they put all their time, energy, and money into dirty tricks and 'gotcha' politics.  They win the occasional cheap victory, but they ain't winning the war for the hearts and minds of the electorate.

Send your letter now and be sure to also check out Lane Hudson's post about this over at The Huffington Post.

I agree with Joe Gabriel about avoiding astroturf letters, which become a petition of sorts rather than individual letters.
I wrote to the New York Times first thing this morning:
Re
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/07/us/pol itics/07edwards.html?_r=5&oref=slogi n&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&or ef=slogin&oref=login

What a silly article you've published about the Edwards campaign and his
blogger hires.
    The Catholic League is not the Knights of Columbus or any other
legitimate Catholic organization. It's the creation of Bill Donohue, a
would-be Catholic version of Pat Robertson; talk shows put him on TV to be
boorish and offensive and thus create controversy and a phony aura of
excitement. His appearances are embarrassing to most Catholics and rude or
bizarre to everyone else.
    Why would John Edwards, the New York Times, or anyone else care what
Bill Donohue has to say about this topic or any other?

I realize this is playing tough, but someone should go through all of Rightwing Nuthouse's posts looking for "hate speech" then post them in the comments in Terry Moran's blog over at ABC.  Rightwing Nuthouse is run by Terry Moran's brother, Rick.  

I got your back.

I was with you until the "bring it on" comment.  That kinda language scares me now.

Just kidding, I'm on board.  Wrote the letter this afternoon.

I tried my standard college .edu address and my AOL address and then my gMail address.

Yeah... i really want to help out... any help?

Salon is now reporting that it was pressure from the liberal blogosphere that allowed Marcotte and McEwan to keep their jobs. I don't know if this is true

Did, in fact, the bloggers ever get fired, even temporarily? Salon reported they were fired yesterday, Salon reported they were rehired today. But I never saw any sources independently corroborate this-- only people citing Salon.

Were the bloggers in fact fired and then rehired, or did Salon mess up in the story yesterday and then just assume they were rehired today to cover themselves?

Just because a statment didn't come out and there never was a confirmation from the campaign in the first place that anyone was fired.

A whole lot of mess got slung around, a lot of nerves were on end, and for what, a premature article in salon.

I just wonder who really had a hand in the Salon article in the first place? Any links to any other campaigns than John Edwards?

This is how bridges are built. Edwards made the first sacrifice for the netroots, now we're putting out for him. The sooner the powers that be realize that we are on their side, and that we compliment each other (by doing things it is poltically incorrect for a campaign to do, like sending thousands of emails to media outlets) when we cooperate.

is mighty. act up tactics, sense of mission, pride, determination, joining good leaders, getting good results...just hate "bring it on." seems like similar misuse of "let's roll." and nohow is this fun to me. still...terra y liberdad!

Credit where it's due (and why no one should listen to me.)

Yesterday I was convinced this was a disaster for the Edward's campaign no matter how they played it because they hadn't responded immediately.

It looks like taking the high road with their statement actually worked brilliantly, as evidenced by Donahue's hilarious rant.

All in all, well played Edward's campaign, well played.

 OK, all. John Edwards has taken a leap of faith, bucked the consultocracy, and cast his lot with the grassroots and netroots. There's no backing down now -- or, more accurately, backing down now will look REALLY bad at every possible level.

  Edwards is about to get the full onslaught of the noise machine. This isn't an easy thing for ANY public figure to go through.

 We need to have his back. Our credibility is at stake here as much as anyone's.

I told the Edwards campaign that I could not support him if they fired the bolggers

Guess I'm an Edwards supporter now

Would keeping the story alive be easier if you spelled Odonohue's name correctly?  I'm thinking about Google linking, etc.  Just a thought.

...Nedra Pickler...included the exact same Donahue quote you asked her to include...

While I can see that today's AP story is more balanced that yesterday's I wonder if Ms. Pickler researched this quote or just published what liberal bloggers emailed to her?  

I can't shake my suspicion that these "reporters"  are just putting their imprimaturs on pre-digested information that others send to them.

In other words are they reporters as they claim or stenographers as they appear to be?

 If John Edwards stands firm and doesn't cave to the noise machine, the Republicans will run a massive smear campaign against him, slander him at every opportunity, accuse him of anti-Catholicism, picket his rallies, and make up weekly lurid stories about him.

 But if John Edwards backs down, the Republicans will run a massive smear campaign against him, slander him at every opportunity, accuse him of anti-Catholicism, picket his rallies, and make up weekly lurid stories about him.

...the Pelosi Airplane Non-Story. While she's doing a good job, we can all help her out.

Time to start writing the very same Catholic newspapers that Donohoe is supposedly going to target.  Maybe even put some ads in.  Church bulletins are great, too...  get the word out about the truth.

Thanks,

Mike

Why isn't it considered anti-Protestant bigotry to form an organization called the Catholic League after the organization dominated by the Guise family, rabid and violent partisans in the sixteenth century Wars of Religion in France? Why does the Catholic Encylopedia claim that the League was the cradle of French democracy while the Protestants were aristocratic and absolutist?  The latter is surely a partisan interpretation.

I'm not a French historian or a Christian and both sides in the Wars of Religion had their share of despicable murderous fanatics.  But my final question is why does the Wikipedia entry on the Catholic League claim that it is a "civil rights organization"?

Now's the time to place the focus on Donohue, but in a smart way.

What, exactly, is the Catholic League? How many people work for it? (According to the tax records, just four people.) How many 'members' does it really have? How many of the 60 million or so American Catholics does he actually speak for?

It's time to start seeking out quotes from genuine Catholic leaders -- presidents of universities, the press offices of bishops and archbishops, etc -- and asking them whether they agree with each of Bill Donohue's bigoted statements.

This should be an easy one to crack: the Catholic Church is nothing if not a hierarchical organisation: there's an official pecking order, and Donohue isn't part of it. Too many Catholics have ignored him, as an embarassment; if they're asked, on the record, to back him or disown him, then you're going to see the hierarchy cut him loose. And when that happens, he's off the speed-dial and out of the MSM Rolodex.

Donohue survives because the establishment pretends that he's not there. Let's begin a big push -- particularly Catholic bloggers and activists -- to make that establishment disavow his bigotry.

Let's see who the first journalist is to call up an archbishop and ask if Donohue's right to say  childhood victims of priest sex abuse were complicit.

Today's story from John Border has nothing in it about Donohue background, history or motivation.  It adds balance by picking up the McCain Hynes story, but it's basically a blogger hit piece.

Byron Calme needs to get some letters....

On Friday I called the Catholic League (published phone# of 212-371-3191) and had a very short and somewhat confrontational conversation with the gentleman answering the phone.  I quoted some of Donohue's statements back to him and asked him to defend the statements, but he replied by questioning the "skewness" of Media Matters and the veracity of the quotes.  I asked if he personally agreed with the quotes now (in which case it would not matter if Donohue did or did not ever say them himself in the past) but the conversation ended shortly after that.  These people should be confronted about what their front man is saying.

Brian