First, rather than scrutinizing Sen. Edward's response, I think the real scrutiny belongs on Salon's initial report. Note that the first sentence contains no attribution. ("The right-wing blogosphere has gotten its scalps -- John Edwards has fired the two controversial bloggers he recently hired to do liberal blogger outreach, Salon has learned.") Classic passive tense to avoid responsibility. Has learned from whom. As if that was not bad enough, the red flag goes up later in the story. ("...Jennifer Palmieri, a spokeswoman for the Edwards campaign, who said in an e-mail that she would 'caution [Salon] against reporting that they have been fired.'") Well, duh, then why did you report it? And if it is disputed, then it is all that more critical to say from whom you learned of the firing.

But more importantly, I believe that the Edwards campaign struck exactly the correct note in responding to this mini "crisis." First, they took their time and learned the facts. While Salon is apparently too impatient to wait for one news cycle to pass, or to simply report that the bloggers position with the campaign is "in jeopardy," or to say that there are conflicting reports, Edwards kept his head about him and took a bit of time to respond thoughtfully. After a brief bit of time to review the actual postings (which we have yet to be directed to) and to actually talk to the two women in question, he issued a statement cautiously backing them.

Sen. Edwards is playing to more than one audience here. It's not just the netroots people that are important. Yes, they may well help him get the nomination, but they are not nearly enough to get anyone elected to the Whitehouse despite what some may wish. To do that, a candidate has to appeal to a great cross section of voters, some of whom might be offended by some of what these folks have written. But at the same time, these more mainstream voters -- think a little blue haired lady in a rural Baptist church -- know people who may talk in ways that they don't talk, but who they love in any event. So the "I read some things that offended me and that's not the way I want folks in my campaign to talk" will resonate with them.

In my book, Sen. Edwards pass this small test with flying colors. I wish I could say the same for Salon.com. Unfortunately, I can't.

I don't disagree that anonymous sources are sometimes necessary, but at least attribute the source to some degree. "A high ranking Edwards campaign official . . . ." "An official working for an opposing campaign, etc." Something. And that sourcing becomes more important when you have a denial from the campaign.

Also, you avoid the issue that in this case before publication, Salon apparently had conflicting sources. The anonymous source, who we no information about to evaluate credibility; and the Edwards campaign spokesman, who's denial gets buried in paragraph three and offhandedly dismissed as "evidence" that they might be "rehired."

Those few here who have criticized the Edwards campaign are off base. Marcotte quit, apparently so that she could get back in the mud with this right wing kook.

The bottom line is that there is something fundamentally incompatible between blogging -- especially of the extreme name calling variety (on either side) -- and a political campaign that, by definition, has to appeal to a broad segment of voters to be successful. Ms. Marcotte, in my humble opinion, is much more in the right that this wing nut Donohue, but it is not in the interest of anybody who wants to see a Democrat elected President in 2008 to give any potential swing voter a reason to vote against one of our candidates.

Ms. Marcotte will frankly, be far more effective advocate for progressive causes outside the polite constraints that a campaign -- any serious campaign organization, not that of John Edwards -- would by necessity place on her.

Her denials read like a conflagration of the worst tendencies of her husband and George Bush. They combine a Clintonian lawyerlike word parsing (it depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is, with a Bush-like inability to admit a simple mistake.

Perhaps Hillary should take a page from John Kerry and John Edwards book and learn how to unambiguously admit that "I made a mistake."

I disagree with you that by refusing to cut off funds that the Democrats are being gutless.

Cutting off funds does not bring the troops home. That could mean that Bush finds some way to leave them in Iraq without adequate weapons and munitions and blames that on the Democrats. It is very much a gamble on whom the public would place the majority of the blame for that predicament. I fear that there is too much of the residual feeling that Democrats are soft on national security to run that risk at this time.

I think that the current leadership, correctly, perceives that the public is not fully convinces -- as are perhaps most who read this publication -- that Bush is not listening and has no interest whatsoever in changing his course. I think that incremental steps are needed before John Q. Public fully understands this.

Turning your back on the south and candidates like John Breaux sounds great until one day you look up and see that the balance of power in the Senate could be decided by one vote. But that could never happen, could it?

Oh, yeah. It's happened two times in the past three congresses. Nevermind.