Did John Edwards just have a "Sister Souljah moment" - in reverse?

A bit of backstory for those who weren't around back then (or don't remember): In 1992, then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton famously criticized Sister Souljah for her comment "If Black people kill Black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?", as she was quoted in an interview with the Washington Post. Clinton remarked that if "you took the words `white' and `black' and you reversed them, you might think David Duke was giving that speech." Clinton not only lashed out at Souljah - he also went on to criticize Jesse Jackson for allowing her to speak at a Rainbow Coalition/PUSH event. This moment, now known as the "Sistah Souljah moment", was a tactical move that showed moderate Democrats and independents that Clinton could be "tough on crime" and that he wouldn't be too strongly influenced by the African-American portion of the Democratic base.

Edwards was presented with a similar "opportunity". He hired two bloggers whose previous writings are considered by many to be inflammatory. When presented with examples of their writings, Edwards could easily have said, "While I hired these two to reach out to the emerging netroots of the Democratic Party, and I understand that sometimes people use colorful language on blogs, I did not know what extremists Ms. Marcotte and Ms. McEwan were. I won't have anything to do with their views on religion, and I have dismissed them from my campaign." Such a move would have shown voters that while he's got a lot of populist views on economics and the Iraq war, he's definitely a mainstream Christian guy. The failure to properly vet the bloggers would have been forgotten as inside baseball.

Unfortunately, the same move would have perpetuated the stereotype that left-leaning blogs are a fever swamp, that politicians interact with us at their own peril. It would have perpetuated the meme that the right speaks up for religion and faith, while the atheist left smears people of faith and deserves to apologize for it. By keeping the bloggers, and by giving them the opportunity to speak for themselves, Edwards did the opposite. His statement showed that you can stand up for free speech and respect others' viewpoints while disapproving of the manner in which they expressed it. Even more than that, Edwards showed that he was ready to stand up for the movement, rather than score political points by distancing himself from us.