Amanda Marcotte is an influential and famously passionate supporter of John Edwards' candidacy. As the media reported last year, she threw herself under a bus to avoid harming his candidacy. So when she breaks with Edwards' campaign over his sexist remarks about Hillary Clinton yesterday, we need to pay attention. Here's what Edwards said via ABCNews:

Former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., ... reacted to rival Sen. Hillary Clinton's emotional moment Monday.

Edwards offered little sympathy and pounced on the opportunity to question Clinton's ability to endure the stresses of the presidency.

"I think what we need in a commander-in-chief is strength and resolve, and presidential campaigns are tough business, but being president of the United States is also tough business," Edwards told reporters in Laconia, New Hampshire.

Earlier in the day, Clinton became emotional when speaking to a group of voters in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Marcotte writes today at Pandagon blog:

Completely unacceptable amounts of sexism. It's bad enough that the media plays the game with Clinton where if she shows any emotion, she's too feminine or too scary, but if she's more stoic, she's a scary ballbuster, but to have her own party members (if political rivals) play that cheap sexist card is too much.

You might know the Tank in Manhattan as the performing arts space home to Bloggers' Alley at the 2004 Republican National Convention. The Tank's moved to a new location since then, and last night was the site of a panel discussion on "Campaigning, Blogging, and Fighting Back" featuring Pandagon's Amanda Marcotte, MyDD's own (and former Bob Menendez Internet Director) Scott Shields, and Ari Melber of the Nation. It was really quite remarkable for a Saturday night in New York City to look out into the assembled crowd and see the likes of Majikthise's Lindsay Beyerstein, the American Prospect's Ezra Klein, Jessica Valenti of Feministing, TPM Cafe's Andrew Golis, Duncan "Atrios" Black, Phillip Anderson of the Albany Project, Culture Kitchen's Liza Sabater, Barbara O'Brien of Mahablog, Justin Krebs and David Alpert of Drinking/Living Liberally, Elana Levin of the Drum Major Institute/DMI Blog, YearlyKos' Gina Cooper, Jeffrey Feldman of Frameshop, and others I'm missing. The New York blogging scene is ascendant, it seems. Turnout was great, across the board. Maybe 80 people?

Somewhat surprising to me, no one seemed to have much interest in rehashing the Edwards' blogger situation. Instead, it was a facinating and, um, really mature and rich discussion on all things blogging and politics. I tried to furtively scribble some notes, but I was moderating and didn't capture as much as I would have liked. What follows are a few of the topics I was able to write down then or remember this morning.

We talked about how the parameters on the role and purpose of a "campaign blogger" haven't been set yet. We explored the idea of actively cultivating representatives for various strains of the netroots, and models of compensation as the key for unlocking the potential of the medium. We talked a lot about whether it makes sense to co-opt activist, advocate bloggers into an official campaign structure. (Lindsay had a great quote, something about how some animals thrive in nature but it makes no sense to bring "a warthog into your living room.") And we delved into whether we're experiencing a paradigm shift in how staffers -- bloggers or otherwise -- are seen as proxies, really, for a candidate they work for, and if there is a paradigm shift, does the netroots need to be more proactive in helping that shift along? In the meantime, it was argued, there's an opportunity to create a wedge between candidates and the netroots, a wedge exploited in the Edwards blogger situation. We talked about Democrats unlearning the apology reflex, and how the inclination to constantly assuage hurt feelings so is a product of the special -- in Ari's words -- "biorhythms" that make progressives who we are. We discussed whether blogging is changing language, perhaps quickly, and whether right now we're caught awkwardly in the sort of liminal phase where language we might consider appropriate, other folks might not. And we talked about how the negative reaction by some on the right to Ann Coulter's "faggot" comment indicates that they're arguing from a position of weakness.

But that's just the beginning of what was covered last night. If you had the chance to attend, please do add your thoughts in the comments.

Scott Shields recently asked you readers of MyDD as to why Brian O'Dwyer is angry re the recent Amanda Marcotte/Edwards blogging fiasco.  I googled "Amanda Marcotte", saw the post, read it and decided to join MyDD.  So hi everybody.

I'll be upfront.  I'm not a liberal or a progressive.  I'm a moderate.  I'm not a Democrat.  I'm an independent.  I'm also a Catholic.  Just like Brian O'Dwyer, who, also like me, is of Irish descent.

I believe that a woman has a right to an abortion, although I'm not much for partial birth abortion.  I was once fuzzy on gay marriage, but when it came down to it...I proudly voted against the proposed state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage here in Virginia.  Unfortunately it passed.  I also was horrified by the pedophelia scandals.  And they had nothing to do with homosexuality or liberal bishops as people like Rick Santorum would tell you.  Oh, and I think Bill Donohue is a pompous bigoted blowhard.  You see, I'm able to disagree with the faith that I was raised.  OK?

Bill Donohue and his minions of mysogyny have made good use of the Catholic religion and violent hatred of women to further their political agenda.

And make no mistake, their agenda is political. They likely have crossed the line this time, as Jeffrey Feldman notes that as a 501(3)C they aren't supposed to interfere in political campaigns.

Admittedly, it has been a rough couple of weeks for the progressive blogosphere. What started as great news from the John Edwards presidential campaign - the hiring of two insightful, respected bloggers in high-level positions - quickly deteriorated in the face of the right wing's last effective ways of doing business, mock, hypocritical outrage and disgusting threats. Despite Edwards's initial defense of bloggers Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, the climate of hate fostered, in part, by the bigoted Bill Donohue and, to a lesser extent, the bigoted Michelle Malkin led to the pair's resignation. In the midst of the controversy, I suggested the benefits of pursuing clenched-fist progressive politics. Upon further review, and armed with the fact that the right won't stop attacking no matter how far backward the Democrats retreat, it has become clear that a no-holds-barred approach is the only way to go. What's also clear is this: We're in this fight together.

Chris Bowers has a post up now about his love for mass movements - even revolutions.

I don't quite understand why Chris doesn't see blogging itself as a movement. But I have some vaguely Foucaldian ideas about the lesson of Amanda Marcotte's separation from the Edwards campaign with which I hope to pique Chris' interest.

Amanda Marcotte resigned from the Edwards campaign.  It was her decision.  Amanda feels encumbered by the campaign and unable to effectively defend herself from the right-wing.  As such, it's the correct decision to make because a Presidential campaign is the wrong place to be if you want to hit back at the right on your own behalf.  Aspiring bloggers for campaigns should take note of the restrictions placed on your freedom when you go to work for a campaign.  The personal cost can be quite high.

Melissa at Shakespeare's Sister is still with the Edwards campaign.  Bill Donohue's attack on Edwards failed, and we know that creepy bigots like him only have power if we grant it to them through our own actions.

... I basically agree with David.

The lesson here seems pretty straightforward to me: if a blogger gets hired to work on a political campaign, that blogger should cease personal blogging. Just don't do it. If you're blogging for a candidate, there's nothing you can say on your own blog that is anything but a liability for your candidate, so you're just hurting the person you presumably want to win. It's annoying to me that someone like Donohue ends up getting what he wanted in this case, and that could have and should have been avoided.

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.