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Marcotte wrote: “I announced that I was taking the job on Jan. 30, and the same week, I noticed a small flare-up of oddly aggressive and misogynistic comments in my moderation queue over a short, irritated post I wrote about the coverage of the Duke lacrosse rape case on CNN. I assumed that some anti-feminist blogger had linked me and so, in frustration, I went and rewrote my by-then week-old post to mock the commenters by spelling out my views in childish, easy-to-understand language. This may have been the first indication that the right-wing noise machine had noticed me and was looking for something with which to hurt me and my new employers.
A few days after my announcement, another in a series of inept shitstorms in the right-wing blogosphere came to my attention. Some vocal conservatives were accusing me of "scrubbing" my posting history at Pandagon, apparently on the theory that I was trying to hide inflammatory material. The evidence for this accusation was that I had mockingly rewritten a one-paragraph post, …”
In the above paragraph and a half Marcotte obliquely refers to a “by-then week-old post” that she “rewrote” to spell out her views. She coyly tells readers that with the rewrite she is not trying to hide inflammatory material.
Here is Marcotte’s original (before deletion) Jan 21st version of her position with regard to the Duke Lacrosse case (titled ‘Stuck at the airport again’):
“In the meantime, I’ve been sort of casually listening to CNN blaring throughout the waiting area and good fucking god is that channel pure evil. For awhile, I had to listen to how the poor dear lacrosse players at Duke are being persecuted just because they held someone down and fucked her against her will—not rape, of course, because the charges have been thrown out.
Can’t a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it?
So unfair.”
Marcotte followed that post with the following Jan 21st commentary:
“Yes, how dare a rape victim act confused and bewildered like she was raped or something.”
“Natalia, do you know the details of the case? If so, why do you think a women enthusiastically jumped into a sexual situation with men making slavery jokes at her? Furthermore, what is your theory on why she supposedly looooooved having sex with guys holding her facedown on the bathroom floor? There’s no “if” they behaved in a disrespectful manner. We have conclusive evidence that happened.”
“This is about race and class and gender in every way, and there’s basically no way this woman was going to see justice. In her part of the country, both women and black people are seen as subhuman objects to be used and abused by white men.”
“Yeah, I know, Alon. Which is why I’m frustrated that people are pretending ‘can’t identify which one raped her” somehow equals ‘wasn’t raped’. I had some initial confusion about exactly who was assaulting me when I was assaulted, but that doesn’t mean that his hands weren’t actually where they were.”
On Feb 2nd Marcotte also deleted her above four Jan 21st comments when she deleted her original post. Very curious considering her explanation that she was merely spelling out her views.
Marcotte made the libelous postings notwithstanding the fact that rape charges had been dismissed against the Duke Lacrosse players a full month before Marcotte’s Jan 21st post.
Marcotte replaced the original Jan 21st post with the following:
“Since people are determined to make hay over this quick shot of a post, I’m deleting it and here’s my official stance. The prosecution in the Duke case fumbled the ball. The prosecutor was too eager to get a speedy case and make a name for himself. That is my final word.”
Want more. When readers look at the comments included in the sanitized version of the ‘Stuck in the airport again’ post (the second link below), readers should hunt for comments made by “Bretto” on Jan 21 at 5:47 pm and “MartinG” on Jan 24 at 12:34 pm. Wait, I’ll save you the trouble. They no longer exist. Marcotte scrubbed the Bretto and MartinG comments into nonexistence simply because they were appended to her comments which she scrubbed after the fact.
Ooops!!! Talk about a mad rush to ‘clarify.’
The deleted Bretto and MartinG comments are visible in the screen capture of the ‘Stuck in the airport again’ post (first link below).
Here is a screen capture of the ‘Stuck in the airport again’ post with full commentary before any deletions:
http://www.herdwatching.com/media/library/2007/02/pandagon_airport_comment.png
Here is the ‘Stuck in the airport again’ post and commentary as it stands now after deletions and scrubbing:
http://pandagon.net/2007/01/21/stuck-at-the-airport-again/#comments
Thoughtful readers can decide if Marcotte deleted her post, scrubbed her commentary and scrubbed the commentary of other ‘innocent bystander’ commentary because, as she said “…I was trying to hide inflammatory material,” or if she rewrote her commentary to “…mock the commenters by spelling out my views…” It is worth noting however, that the Duke Lacrosse case plays out in North Carolina, the state which Senator Edwards represents (just a few scant miles from Senator Edwards’ home).
