It looks like the phrase "You should take responsibility for what you write" means nothing more than "You are to blame for the way I feel when I read your words." While admitting that I can't expect a person to feel anything but insulted when they read something that is insulting to themselves in some way, I must point out that we choose how we react to what we read.

The person who has written the words has already taken responsibility for them; she's posted them on the Internet and she's signed her name to them. There you go. You know she wrote them. What else did you want her to do, hold your hand and walk you through reading them? What else, precisely, is she supposed to do?

How about YOU take responsibility for how YOU REACT? Because I promise you, folks, you are not doing that any more than you think Amanda Marcotte is taking responsibility for her words. Not even close.

You think you've got the moral high ground? You're sitting here calling her names and casting aspersions on her character. What high ground? You're in the hole and she's throwing dirt over you.

I will agree with the sentiment of, "What did she expect people to say when she made those remarks about Mary?", even as I see the satire in her statement... but that still DOES NOT take the onus off of her readers to take responsibility for their behavior. And that includes the trolls.

If you've got issues with her, go start your own damn blog and say mean things about her in it. At least then you'd be able to say you were exercising free speech. Right now you're engaging in harassment. Get over yourselves.

I'm disappointed Amanda couldn't fight against the ideologues more effectively but there wasn't anything she could do by staying in the campaign of a man with no spine. We need Democrats who will stand up against right-wing bullies. We need Democrats who stand for something. I'm sick of this centrist b.s., and Edwards is just one more installment of it. And I'm saying this as someone who's voted for him twice. Enough already.

Although a progressive activist who blogs regularly and has enjoyed some of Shakespeare's Sister's and Atrios's posts, I'm not an avid follower of the stylish blogs, referring more regularly to the more fact-based, say Confined Spaces (http://spewingforth.blogspot.com/) and Secrecy News (http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/) . And after reading a few entries at Pandagon, I'll admit to preferring the less coarse, but equally hard-hitting non-blog writing of the late Molly Ivins.

So, this whole debacle could have blown over without my noticing like a tornado in the next county on a day when I was outside gardening under blue skies.

Then, today, I read a colleague who's involved himself in political blogmastering, albeit he's a generation older than the 30-somethings and more scruffy than the khaki-wearers that Marcotte writes of as being who folks imagine as the bloggers who join campaigns. (http://www.orient-lodge.com/trackback/2160)

Marcotte writes she was aware the she "didn't exactly fit the image." My question: how is that image to change if folks like Marcotte quit, allowing themselves to be driven out of a job by the "noise machine."

My advice: toughen up, gal! Your narrative leaves me wondering what candidate would want to stand behind someone only to have her quit?

Femember, the New York Times's Abe Rosenthal had to fire Molly Ivins. And she bragged about not having shown "due respect and deference to the great dignity" of that paper.

(http://editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003157012)

Her offense? She had called a chicken slaughtering festival in New Mexico a “gang pluck.”

(http://editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003541583)

bitch, unintelligent, a man hater, a liar, and a whole lot more. The far right and her have much in common.

As a life long liberal, I have wanted to believe in Progress. I think that is why Amanda accepted a position with the Edwards campaign. Why shouldn't a strong feminist accept such a position? Now we know.

When you listen to all the boosterism of the Conservatives. Talking about spreading Democracy, a culture of life, values and so forth and then you see how they really operate, it tends to breed cynicism.

I will support Edwards if he is the Democratic candidate. I hope his visual optimism is the real deal. Those on his staff that brought Amanda Marcotte into the campaign had to be idealists hoping for an ideal world. In reality, however, there are TWO America's. The bad side is nasty, brutish and willing to say or do anything to dominate. I hope they can be defeated without sinking into the mud with them to engage in the battle. But the challenge has to be addressed.

piece of shit. How does she feel now that Nifong has been disbarred and the Duke athletes declared innocent? Hope she gets ovarian cancer.