The internet is the new frontier, and like all frontier towns it's messy, violent, lawless ... and women are well advised to stay inside with the blinds down. Or ride a real fast horse and carry a big gun.

I'm sorry the author resigned from her campaign job. Did the Edwards people who hired her actually tell her to go? I didn't get that impression from this story. And if they didn't, then she shouldn't have left. 'They' would have found a new target soon enough.

All of this reminded me of my experience in student politics. A big caffuffle happened about a misquotation regarding drugs. Ugly right wing men abused my colleague on national TV. Tabloids phoned her father asking if he wasn't ashamed of his daughter. It seems to be a media sub-genre - the humiliation of the ingenue. But it goes away, and they find a new target soon enough.

Regarding the especially unpleasant harrassment of young women - I know it's true. And I know it takes a special kind of person who get their thrills from writing foul emails to women - and there seem to be a lot of them out there.

Hi Amanda.

As a struggling Christian/Universalist/Whatever feminist I was as often put off by your blog as I was inspired by it.

As much as I have disagreed, I have to say: The amount of bile poured out on you in recent days was beyond all standards of human decency. Only a person who is deeply insecure in his or her faith would go to such great lengths to practically destroy another - and I put Donohue and his lapdogs in that category. What a bunch of bloody Pharisees.

Maybe I'm a coward for saying that I never wish to go into politics. Maybe my calling is elsewhere regardless of the fact.

Regardless of the fact, your example has certainly educated me.

I hope you never change.

As someone who has read Ms Marcotte's blog for several years, it was, in my opinion, gratifying to see her contribution to politicial discourse being acknowledge with a chance to manage the blog of a major candidate.

The screeching comments from the right-wing beggared belief, especially when balanced against the violence and abuse trafficked on other web-pages every day.

I cannot say 'what I would have done' in the position of Ms Marcotte, but it is truly a shame that such appalling tactics have apparently brought about the desired effect.

Mr Donahue's conduct is nothing short of disgraceful, and he has, in my opinion, brought shame and disgrace upon himself and all of his associates.

I wish to pass on my best wishes to Ms Marcotte, for the obvious stress and financial difficulty caused by this shameful episode.

Governor Richardson is going to do very well in New Hampshire. His international resume is a breath of fresh air amongst the candidates, and it is going to take a fiscally sound internationally minded and internationally experienced Democrat to rebuild from the last 6 years of corporate manipulation and kleptoplutocracy, which has almost destroyed the USA in so many nations.

Diplomacy still works well, and no one is better equipped or more experienced in international diplomacy than New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. I've seen him in action, and the guy really gets important initiatives accomplished in the lobbyist-controlled New Mexico legislature which actually benefit the people of New Mexico, where almost all others have failed. Same is true in the Sudan. I think Richardson could be for the USA what Pierre Trudeau was for Canada. Time will separate the wheat from the chaff, eh?

Stephen Fox

Hi Amanda,

I'm sorry you quit. It was obviously a long newsweek in Repo-land (deteriorating war in Iraq, ambiguous evidence misrepresented by the President, yet another announcement by same First Occupant that No Child Left Behind is succeeding when it isn't, etc.) and they needed something nonsensical to cover it.

A week seems like a long time, but it really isn't. There's only the shock of one story that will carry so long, before a poodle wearing a clown hat riding a bike with a shocking liberal bumper sticker will replace it. Everyone must make their own decisions with these kinds of things, but the Repo jerks will always find something to squawk about when it comes from our best talent.

I hope you do find a place in the campaign, and stick with it. We need more like you.

This is a heartbreaking story.

I know this won't make you feel better, but Edwards lost my vote when he couldn't handle this smear campaign.

I'm sorry this happened, Ms. Marcotte.

The story makes me respect you, and lose respect for Edwards. Bloggers have a particular art, and a particular honesty. It seems to me that by hiring you, he was attempting to appeal to a hot demographic. But he failed to protect you from a lot of real nastiness that ensued from you simply doing what you do.

He doesn't get my vote either.

I still don't know who Bill Donohue is. Here is the post from Amanda which I know some people had problems with. It has since been whitewashed from Amanda's blog by her. The post was entitled "Stuck in 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.

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.

Plus, the media is acting like these men are exonerated!

Ms. Marcotte's former employee is from "her part of the country" as Ms. Marcotte terms it. Ms. Marcotte's post is based on some of the most offensive and indefensible assumptions capable of any human. Ms. Marcotte's post is sexist and racist. Every element of her post seems to be willfully ignorant of most of the facts surrounding the case. Ms. Marcotte lacks even the moral fortitude to stand by her statements and leave it on her site. According to her, what has happened in recent weeks is the fault of everyone but herself. As Marcotte continues to make mistakes throughout her life, I am curious to see who will be at fault the next time and the next time and the next time. If you keep listening to Ms. Marcotte, I suspect she won't be claiming it.