Stick A Fork In John Edwards, He's "Done"

John Edwards has had a nightmare week of ducking criticism for the anti-Catholic and -Christian blogging women his staff hired.

As of mid-week, I heard two separate reports that he had fired them, then rehired them, under pressure from leftist bloggers. Recently, however, I've seen them referred to as being on some sort of probationary status.

According to Nedra Pickler, of the AP, in an article in the Washington Post on 8 February,

" "When Mel Gibson got drunk and made anti-Semitic remarks, he paid a price for doing so. When Michael Richards got angry and made racist remarks, he paid a price for doing so. ... But John Edwards thinks the same rules don't apply to him, which is why he has chosen to embrace foul-mouthed, anti-Catholic bigots on his payroll," Donohue said.

Edwards has never met the two bloggers and his first conversation with them came when he called to discuss the uproar. The 2004 vice presidential nominee told reporters in South Carolina: "It will not happen again. That you can be sure of."

The campaign distributed written regrets from the two women, who stressed they were writing on personal blogs. Edwards said in the statement he believes in giving everyone a "fair shake."

The two were hired last week as part of Edwards' outreach to liberal voters and online activists.
Edwards spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri said the campaign was aware that Marcotte and McEwan, like many bloggers, had written provocative postings on their personal sites. But the campaign had not read them all and had not seen the postings criticizing the church until Donohue put out a statement Tuesday, Palmieri said.

For instance, Marcotte had written that the church wants "to force women to bear more tithing Catholics" and McEwan had written that the pope is among those who "regularly speak out against gay tolerance." Other postings used more graphic language.

Palmieri said Edwards had been traveling through Michigan, Missouri and Oklahoma and wanted time to discuss the bloggers' statements with them and weigh their future.
"We're dealing with people's careers and reputations and livelihoods," Palmieri said."

I find it curious that Edwards didn't bother to meet them prior to hiring them, yet he now indicates he will have to talk with them personally before determining their fate, relative to his campaign. Yet again, inconsistency. Surely he realizes that he has the running room to fire both the bloggers and the staff person who so injudiciously hired them?

Edwards' first major mistake here, of course, is bad vetting judgment. One need write no more than two words to illustrate this: Dan Quail.

And, no, it is not sufficient to claim these women's private blogs have no bearing on Edwards' campaign. He will be associated with their prior acts, no matter what, given that they are highly-opinionated "communications" staffers. Politics is all about character and character judgments. For more on that, see my recent post on campaign treasurers, here.

Then, with the rehiring of the virulently anti-Catholic blogging women, Edwards demonstrated a lack of any conviction, decisiveness or spine.

Someone stick a fork in this guy now. I think he's "done" for this campaign. As a friend of mine described Edwards, this year's walking, talking "Ken doll" is probably irretrievably damaged for the 2008 cycle.