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Before Edwards hired you, I had never heard of you. In the blogosphere, I avoid blogrolls and I'm pretty loyally provincial about the few corners I choose to hang out in, so you were a stranger.
But my reactions to your story from the time you came under fire have been completely emotional and personal. When you first were attacked, I was so pissed. I got up a head of anger about what the smear machine was trying to do to you. I joined my voice to those of others who swore I'd disown Edwards if he fired you. And then he didn't fire you, and at that point I felt so much hope and pride that finally there was an unapologetically progressive political force in this country that I support and participate in (netroots grassroots), and that was powerful enough to push back against the smear merchants and keep you in your place in the Edwards campaign.
At that point you became a symbol, representing something real and important and valuable and needed. Your fate (if you will) didn't just belong to you anymore. Alot of people shared in it.
And then you quit, and by doing so gave away your power (and ours) to the rightwing nutters who had attacked you. And I feel so angry and frustrated toward you now.
And you did it because you said you just had to come out and defend yourself. All the threats and sex-violence invective were just so much turgid purple impotence, and you chose engaging with that over real power. All that pure mysogyny was like magnetic north to you—it validates your worldview and was just too tempting for a feminist activist not to wallow in. And it all leaves me feeling depressed, angry and has rekindled my resentment of feminism as a movement that's easily distracted by it's need to seek conflict, controversy and validation over real power and real resolution.
