Intemperate allies for me, but not for thee

There’s no official word yet on whether John Edwards’ presidential campaign has fired Pandagon’s Amanda Marcotte and Shakespeare’s Sister’s Melissa McEwan yet. Salon reported that the dismissal has already happened, but Edwards’ spokesperson cautioned Salon against reporting that they have been fired and said, “We will have something to say later.”

Presumably, the internal debate amongst Edwards staffers has been ongoing throughout the day, which in and of itself, is less than encouraging. The debate need not be that hard — the choice is whether to stand by the campaign’s own staffers, or fire them for things they wrote before joining the campaign because some far-right voices have demanded it.

I’ve already done a couple of posts on this, and there are no shortage of perspectives on the story, but I wanted to add that there’s one picture that’s been stuck in my head all day. It’s this one, taken by White House Photo Director Eric Draper, which ran in the NYT in October.



I realize this is a point I feel compelled to make from time to time, but it simply amazes me that there are two distinct standards for political associations. High-profile Democrats are supposed to keep their distance from anyone who dares to say anything intemperate, but Republicans have no qualms about maintaining close professional ties to some of the most vitriolic, hate-filled voices in our public discourse.



Indeed, it’s worth remembering that Rush Limbaugh would have been in the above photo, but couldn’t make the meeting. No matter — not long after the WH meeting, and a week after Limbaugh mocked a man for having Parkinson’s, the president sat down with the right-wing talk-show host for an interview.

As for the gang in the photo, Nico did a nice job explaining at the time exactly how “mainstream” the president’s friends are.

Amanda and Melissa find themselves today with their jobs on the line because some conservatives were offended by a handful of their blog posts, written long before they had any association with any campaign. In the meantime, on the other side of the aisle, there is literally nothing a right-right hate-monger can say to reach pariah status in American society.

Ann Coulter can condemn 9/11 widows, but she’s still in the conservative mainstream. [tag]Bill O’Reilly[/tag] suggested that it’d be fine with him if [tag]al Qaeda[/tag] attacked a major American city, but he suffered no consequences. In 2001, just 48 hours after 9/11, [tag]Jerry Falwell[/tag] said liberal Americans were to blame for the attacks and said the nation “deserved” the terrorism, but Republicans are still reaching out to him for political support.

I don’t know what the Edwards campaign is going to end up doing, but the fact that this is even open to debate suggests the double standard that exists isn’t going anywhere for a while.