Ed-Words Hurt

The blogosphere is abuzz with the brouhaha over two lefty bloggers that were hired and apparently fired by the John Edwards campaign for anti-Catholic remarks made on their blogs. It seems the bloggers in question, Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon and Melissa McEwan of Shakespear's Sister, have written some things that aren't very...shall we say...diplomatic. Here's Marcotte on the virgin birth:

Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit?

A: You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology.

Charming.

Look, I'm all for people spewing whatever vile hatred that resides in their hearts on their personal blogs. Whatever. That the Edwards campaign failed to vet their new-hires more closely before making them part of the team seems odd, particularly when considering that Catholic voters are a key audience to which Edwards is tageting his populist message. Then again, this is the same guy who had to interrupt his busy schedule in the midst of building his 28,000-SF mansion in order to kick off his presidential campaign from New Orleans. So much for symbolism, John.

Mary Katherine Ham @ Townhall has a few observations. Here's one:

At 28,000 square feet and 100 acres, if there are two Americas, I'm sure John can pony up and house at least one of them.

UPDATE: It looks as though Edwards is keeping the bloggers on the payroll, after getting assurances "that it was never their intention to malign anyone’s faith." I'm not buying it. Either is the religious left.

Kathryn Jean Lopez wonders how the Edwards campaign would’ve reacted if Marcotte had said something equally offensive about Mohammed.

On Giuliani's Bid

The Presidential election cycle begins seems to begin earlier every 4 years. Although we are more than 1-1/2 years from the next election, Democrat and Repbulican presidential candidates are attempting to outflank each other in hopes of attaining their party's nomination. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama appear to have taken the early lead for the Democrats, while John McCain, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani (despite not officially declaring his candidacy) look to be the early front-runners on the Republican side.

For me, it is way too early to decide for whom I will vote. That will play out over the next year or so. However, I did run across an article about Giuliani today that gave a pretty comprehensive run-down of his accomplishments as the Mayor of New York City. The article attempts to show his credentials as a conservative, for which he is not generally regarded, due to his three marriages and his support for abortion rights, gay unions, and curbs on gun ownership. Here's a sample:

Today, Americans see Giuliani as presidential material because of his leadership in the wake of the terrorist attacks, but to those of us who watched him first manage America’s biggest city when it was crime-ridden, financially shaky, and plagued by doubts about its future as employers and educated and prosperous residents fled in droves, Giuliani’s leadership on 9/11 came as no surprise. What Americans saw after the attacks is a combination of attributes that Giuliani governed with all along: the tough-mindedness that had gotten him through earlier civic crises, a no-nonsense and efficient management style, and a clarity and directness of speech that made plain what he thought needed to be done and how he would do it.