I didn't notice that the date on your post was 02/09, so *I'm* the one not doing my research.

I'm not sure where your contention that neither Melissa nor Amanda discussed this on their respective blogs came from. Pandagon (which is not just Amanda's site, BTW) has been down at least twice over the past week because of the traffic spikes caused by replies to posts on the subject. Shakespeare's Sister (again, not just Melissa's site) has five posts on the controversy between Tuesday and today.

Granted, the majority of the posts have been by the other bloggers on those sites. But considering that Melissa and Amanda were not only being deluged with mail, but having to deal with the mundane realities of being out of work, I think it's understandable that their posting volume has been low.

I belong to an organization that depends on small donations because we just can't afford to be in a position where someone could threaten us with withdrawing a survival-level donation if we don't quit defending some issue or devote attention to some other issue. But it's an anti-censorship organization; you have to be free to say what you believe.

As a blogger, I like being responsible only to myself. Although I take on board suggestions and complaints from my readers, none of them controls what I say.

So I wouldn't take a job with a political campaign - not for their sake, but for mine. I want the freedom to say what I think.

If, however, I wanted to work on political campaigns, I would have been a lot more careful about what I posted from the very beginning.

Be that as it may, I wish I understood better what the Edwards campaign was thinking when they hired someone like Amanda without realizing that they would have to be ready to stand up to a despicable onslaught from the far right. I don't know why the right-wing bloggers have made such a long-time project of hating Amanda, but she has had a special place in their target practice sessions for quite some time now and that's something everyone should have put up front about this particular choice. But I don't think right-wing hatred of her should make her ineligible for getting a job with a Democratic campaign. Being hated by the right-wing comes with the job, or you're not doing it right.

Nevertheless, having hired her, and having become part of that target practice for some of the most reprehensible people in the political world, the campaign should have stood up, and they didn't. These were bad people, and the message from the Edwards campaign should have been that nasty people have no veto power over who they hire.

Look, it wouldn't matter if Amanda and Shakes were 100% pure - the right-wingers would have found a reason to paint them as unacceptable. They would have twisted some of the words of their old posts. Wait - they did that anyway. It doesn't matter.

If Edwards is going to get anywhere, he has to be prepared for this stuff, full stop. Democratic voters are sick of politicians who let themselves get mau-maued by the right-wing loonies.

But it's unreasonable to ask that these bloggers write about their employers on their own private blogs. People who are known to talk out of school too much about their employers usually find they are unemployable in the future.

I was offended by Amanda Marcotte's presumptions and continual bashings of the three defendants in the Duke lacrosse rape case when anyone following the case knows that there was no rape, no sexual assault, no kidnapping, and there is a good possibility that the only racial epithet said by any of the attendees at the party was the abstruse "cotton shirt" remark made by one person as the two strippers were driving off from the party (and not any of the three defendants). In fact, the only confirmed racial epithet used at the party was when the second stripper called the players "little dick white boys."

Right now the DA Mike Nifong is recused, facing multiple charges from the State Bar for his unethical and illegal behavior in this case (to aid in his reelection). The rape charges have been dropped. The director of the private lab Nifong used to test DNA collected from the accuser has admitted on the stand to what amounts to a criminal conspiracy to hide the fact that four to five other men's DNA was found on the accuser but nothing from any of the players on the lacrosse team.

In short, no rational person should still be clinging to the prosecution's early theory of the case (the accuser has many different versions of the events, to include her latest in which she is not sure whether the half-hour rape involved the use of penises). The fact that Marcotte has kept pushing this broken case to her readers suggests either a not terribly bright person or someone deliberately spreading mistruths, or someone at least very ignorant of the case. I'm not sure which of those attributes attracted Edwards to Marcotte.

By the way, I am liberal, I don't think I've voted for a Republican since the 1970s. I think when someone makes a judgment on someone's guilt or innocence based on race, class and gender that someone probably isn't going to be a plus to your organization.

A writer who isn't good enough to get someone to pay them to do a job, or to get published in a mainstream source?

A person who is excessively opinionated and thinks the world should care?

A person with way too much time on their hands, who probably ought to get a real job?

A person who needs to get a life, or at least a hobby. Go to the gym, guys and gals, or take up birdwatching or stamp collecting.

BTW - are blogs really "so popular"? I mean, does anyone actually read blogs apart from other bloggers?

The fact the formerly independent bloggers are now employees of the Edwards campaign of course will shape what they write -- they're loyal now to the larger needs of the campaign. So why would they be blogging about the campaign organization's internal considerations regarding the controversy spurred by their hiring? No institution I know of could survive without some level of confidentiality on the part of their employees.

And I've got no problem with independent bloggers going to work for institutions. Journalists do it. Their choices, of course, will forever affect how they're read. Sydney Blumenthal can never be read without his work as a member of the Clinton administration affecting how he's perceived, nor can William Safire ever be read without seeing his words through the lense of his work for Nixon. But those are choices writers can make. Who is anyone to say otherwise?