One of the things people who keep real logs learn quickly is that revisions are OK if you show the edit trail, but erasures are intentioal lies. That's not the common perception of blog owners, in my experience, which is why I read few blogs anymore, and believe almost nothing I read on any of them. The temptation for a blog owner without journalistic training to put a greasy thumb on the scales they operate, after the fact, is just too strong, too often. And frankly, it's too easy with most blogging packages to be a revisionist, rather than to be responsible for the words you write, and the damage they may then do. Re-writing a blog post is basic dishonesty. If your opinions have changed on a subject, because you've learned new things about it, or have reflected on your previous views, post a corrective entry, and let your previous entry stand, in the post succession you made, and with the comment history it engendered (if you allow comments). That is the way a real pen-and-ink bound book log works, and it's the time tested standard for records in navigation, broadcasting, aviation, and hundreds of other human endeavors where truth matters. It's the honest way to log on the Web.

Amanda Marcotte, by her own admissions, isn't a competent Webmaster (if she's in control of at least two blogs that have had problems with archive corruption, she clearly knows nothing about backup and restore of databases, or can't functionally do it, which is the same thing). She also went into the job with some faulty premises (that she could or should keep publishing a personal blog, while working as professional blogger, an obvious conflict of interest situation), and learned little from the experience, as she is still blaming her problems on others, not on her own failures of foresight, ethics, or operation. She could not even see how carrying a personal history of partisanship into a campaign staff position of this nature, could cause problems for the campaign, rather than be an asset to it, which calls into question how astute her political instincts may be.

That said, her problems may lead the Edwards campaign, and others, to vet potential "blogmasters" a lot more closely, for their professional standards and real world capabilities. It was just silly for the Edwards campaign to hire someone to run a public media organ, who wasn't technically or ethically competent to do so, and any blowback they've experienced in having said person jump ship two weeks later should be sufficient reason to re-think the utility of a blog to a political campaign, beyond being a simple record of the campaign and the candiates activities, entirely.

Dear Ms. Marcotte,

I write as a liberal Democrat and supporter of John Edwards. I believe in freedom of speech and religion.

I found your words very offensive and divisive. As I posted on the JRE official site, sarcasm and cynicism in the name of "humor" is only thinly disguised HATE. Our culture is full of it, everywhere - and not just the hatemongering GOP.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Edwards is not about hate or saying mean-spirited things about anyone or their belief systems, no matter how strongly one disagrees. I personally disagree with the right-wing smear machine - and even with their beliefs - but that's my personal opinion, not a judgement. I'm not going to describe their beliefs publicly in such vitriolic terms as you did. I'll bet if you knew his personal religious beliefs as a southern Baptist, you'd have some nasty things to say about them too. He has more integrity than you do, lots more.

Go ahead and disagree, strongly and with conviction - that's your American right. But don't think you're being "funny" - you're NOT.

"I had to listen to how the poor dear lacrosse players at Duke are being persecuted just because they held someone down and f**kedher 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."

Amanda Marcotte, 1-21-2007

"At this bus stop in the blogosphere, I am Queen C*** of F*** Mountain."

- Melissa McEwan, 3-31-2005

After reading their expletive-included rants, one can only believe that the comedy team of Marcotte & McEwan left the Edwards campaign team to embark on their real missionary positions in life: tenure as Virgins #71 and #72 in Paradise Lost.

Yes, it was satire, and guess what? Satire is meant to hurt, in the interest of serving a larger point.

If the Church's position on birth control is so popular with Catholics, how come the great majority of American Catholics, in poll after poll, ignore it? Why is artificial birth control disallowed? Because, uh, well, I really have no idea. Because it gives freedom to women? Because it would be a much better idea for the world, with the population explosion being what it is, to limit the growth of populations before we hit 10 billion, and not by any 1984-like government decrees, but just through the normal exercise of a woman's will? Because, if you don't have to be worried about conception every single time you have sex, you might enjoy sex as an expression of love a little more?

I grew up Catholic, and am not anymore, in large part because of attitudes like yours. It's not "bigotry against Catholics" you can't stand, you just hate being contradicted, and even made fun of.

There's a sizable portion of Catholics that want to join with the fundamentalist right and allow religion to dominate politics. Thunder condemnation all you want, but there's more Catholics who don't want anything to do with Falwell or the right-wing Christians in general. You're in the minority, even among Catholics.

If you don't like Catholcs ever being made fun of, go back to Franco's Spain.

What is distinctive about Ms. Marcotte's writings? It's a rhetoric not previously heard in the campaigns of serious candidates for the presidency. It's a rhetoric which the good sense of American voters overwhelmingly reject, instinctively, based on their multi-generational experience with the rites of democracy and the civility essential to democracy's survival in a diverse populace.

I offer this entire comments thread as evidence in support of my argument.