Thursday, February 8

"Sometimes I almost feel just like a human being."

UPDATE: Edwards is keeping them on. I don't like his pandering, but this is a victory.

found on Flickr and dedicated to certain John Edwards staff


That's the name of the post at Pandagon. I was thinking the same thing. Amanda and Melissa are human beings.

While people are blogswarming the Edwards thing, it might be helpful to remember that the legitimacy of Amanda and Melissa comes FROM THEIR BLOGS, not their campaign jobs. I love that only six short weeks ago Melissa did this interview. About her blog. Before any of this other stuff happened.

I love Shakes because of her blog. That a Presidential candidate recognized her worth is nice, but that says something about him. About her, we knew already. If Edwards allows Michelle Malkin and bigoted priest-rapist apologists determine his staff, well...

What James Boyce said:

Citizen journalists and citizen broadcasters have different rules, ethics and ways of fucking talking. Just ask John Edwards who is discovering that his bloggers blogged like bloggers. He should celebrate it, not condone their dismissal. He wanted a blogger, he got a blogger. End of story.

And you know what? I like our ethics, and our work relationships and our boundaries better. A lot better. In DC, you lie to someone's face as a matter of course. You actually will catch an old DC political operative in a direct lie and they don't care. I do. We do.


Never thought I'd quote Norman Mailer here but he said this past weekend on Studio 360, "politics forces you to shake hands with people you despise." Not in the blogosphere, Norman. Worry much about polarization? I don't. There is good in this world, and there is the Bush Administration and those who would continue their policies.

Memo to Edwards: With all due respect, you need us bloggers a LOT more than we need you. You can have our undying, virulent gratitude, energy, and dare I say it, support, or not.

11 comments:

  1. Memo to Edwards: With all due respect, you need us bloggers a LOT more than we need you. You can have our undying, virulent gratitude, energy, and dare I say it, support, or not.

    Well said. How many times have people ignored the power that blogs have just to have it bite them on the ass? Sooner or later they'll learn to just do the right thing and not the political thing, and this massive, talented, powerful, GROWING network will back them all the way.

    If they do the wrong things, like caving to slime like Malkin, well, they can get their message out on TV I guess. Good luck with that.

    ReplyDelete
  2. bloggers are people, we the people...

    sometimes i think d.c. forgets that fact.

    they work for us. they are supposed to answer TO us and bloggers have reminded them AND the people of our country of that fact.

    gee and sometimes we swear, let us not forget,just like cheney and bush do.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Just read the update. Good move.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous12:54 PM

    Edwards caved. He accepted the premise of Malkin and Donohue. He said he was personally offended, just like them.

    He just can't bring himself to fire Amanda and Melissa.

    We need a candidate who won't appease the wingnut noise machine like that.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The right-wing idiots making the biggest noise over the f-word are the ones who want to fuck the First Amendment the hardest. They should be the ones on the defensive.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous1:52 PM

    "keeping them on..."

    my God, I hope you mean the bloggers and not that pair of skimpy panties pictured! ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Is it now fair to say that Edwards caved against the bloggers before he caved for the bloggers?

    Edwards was on my "had potential" list for 2008, if and when he would have come out for gay marriage, which he hasn't, and won't.

    Now he's on my "view with suspicion" list.

    ReplyDelete
  8. The spectacle of human folly all the way around is a never-ending source of amusement to me.

    Quaker Dave, I'm an Obama Man, myself, but I think it's not.gonna.happen.

    I think Hillary Clinton is our next president. Which I am trying to rectify within myself already.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hillary Clinton will get the Democratic nomination.

    And she will lose the election.

    Obama gets my vote when he stops mealy-mouthing around and comes out for gay marriage. All his talk about bringing people together and whatnot is all good, but he needs to come out and get behind the human rights issue of our time. His time.

    My problem with him right now is that he's mostly talk. Although his work on Iraq this week was a good start.

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  10. what boyce said. you want bloggers, you hire bloggers, you get bloggers.

    and what you said, bg. edwards, trailing badly in third place in national polls, can't afford to alienate the base he's staked out: progressives.

    good for him for taking the hit, standing up to the hardly-ever-right wing echo chamber, and proving that it can be done and still survive.

    maybe now more folks will try it.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Select the control and then insert the token
    You wanna throw me away but I'm not broken.
    You've got a lot to say. Well I'm not joking.
    There are some words they don't allow to be spoken.
    Sometimes I almost feel just like a human being


    Aren't these bloggers just becoming mouths in the lipstick vogue?

    And since I'm little more than a mockingbird, a quote for Brando from one of his contemporaries, Lenny Bruce:
    Take away the right to say 'fuck' and you take away the right to say 'fuck the government.'

    ReplyDelete

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