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There is so much wrong with the corporate media narrative of the hirings, "controversy" and subsequent resignations of former
bloggers Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan from the Edwards campaign that you really need to see the unfolding of this travesty
for yourself to believe it.
For starters, go to Media Matters to see the documentation (kudos to MM for keeping watch) of how the news staffs of the New York Times and the Associated Press snapped up
Catholic League president Bill Donohue's accusations of anti-Catholic bigotry on the part of Marcotte and McEwan, but ignored
Donohue's own history of making astonishingly bigoted remarks and condoning obscenely anti-Catholic slurs by one of his allies.
(Examples by Donohue: "The gay community has yet to apologize to straight people for all the damage that they have done."
[MSNBC, 4/11/05]; "Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular."
[MSNBC, 12/8/04]) And it gets worse. Much worse. Don't take my word for it. Follow the MM link.
It's what I call the "frogs have wings" complex, whereby credulous (or just plain lazy) reporters lend legitimacy to untrue
or unfair allegations by repeating them without critically investigating the allegations or their sources. This is how the
Swift Boat smear accomplished its hit on John Kerry. It is also how our nation ended up in a war in Iraq.
Then, if you want a sense of how corporate media commentators can take smirking comfort in the worn (and I think untrue) old
saw that the blogosphere evens itself out because crudeness and abuse are equal on all sides (so why worry about how feminists
Marcotte and McEwan are being savaged by the online right?), go to Times political blogger/columnist Kate Phillips's 2/13/07 entry, in which Phillips comments lightheartedly on the emailed threats swamping McEwan (e.g., "well, she might see it as hate-mail")
and makes sighing noises about the demise of online civility. Phillips does find the will, at least, to cautiously venture
that some of Bill Donohue's statements "have been called anti-Semitic and anti-gay." But really; enough is enough with these
complacent mainstream claims of alleged parity of pathology on the right and left. I know this is anecdotal, but as a speaker,
author and blogger I have yet to see anything on the left approaching the amount of misogynistic, racist, and generally pathological
personal abuse that emanates from the electronic peanut gallery of the right.
For a less dainty view than Phillips's of the explicit rape and murder fantasies, personal threats and profane abuses aimed
at these two smart and opinionated women by emailers on the right, go to Marcotte's posting of a sampling of her recent hate mail. If you can stomach it. (Thanks to Majikthise for posting the link.)
Lane Hudson also has an unflinching piece in the 2/13/07 Huffington Post in which he calls the mainstream media to task for passively providing an echo chamber for the likes of Donohue, a failure
of will that Hudson calls "a complete breakdown in the responsibility that the media has in vetting those who are given a
platform to spread a message."
And Majikthise, aka Lindsay Beyerstein (who, as it happens, sold a photo of Marcotte to Time when the magazine ran
an early story on Marcotte's being hired by Edwards), has a 2/13/07 entry in which she posts McEwan's resignation statement in its entirety -- a statement that is less about politics than about the
vicious personal pathology of the cyberpsychos who have taken out after her. Beyerstein predicts, actually, that the entire
episode will ultimately undermine the 501(c)(3) status of Donohue's Catholic League, which as a tax-exempt organization is
forbidden from exerting influence on political campaigns.
I could say something here about how we manage to tolerate a presidency that condones torture and that plants fake-journalist
male prostitutes in the White House press pool, but we somehow cannot abide intelligent, sharp-penned female commentators
signing on with a presidential campaign.
But I won't. Like I said, follow the links and see for yourself how this witch hunt has played out.
Happy Valentine's Day.
(Posted 2/14/07 by Bruce A. Jacobs)
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