Marcotte Airbrushing Edwards’s Blog?
Should John Edwards be concerned that the person he put in charge of his blog has a history of airbrushing inconvenient content?
I would think the answer is “yes” — at least if she is doing it on Edwards’s blog, as one of Jeff Goldstein’s guest bloggers charges.
P.S. I should add that I don’t agree with what appears to be the premise of Jeff’s now-disappeared comment at Edwards’s blog, namely, that a candidate should not hire bloggers who have said embarrassing things, or things that don’t line up with the candidate’s positions. Most of us have said something embarrassing at one point or another. And few of us line up with the candidates of our choice on every issue.
Nor should it necessarily be a big issue that the blogger in question is generally shrill and unreasonable. After all –especially on the left — if you disqualify such people, your pool of talent (such as it is) shrinks considerably.
But all of these issues are quite different from the issue of whether a campaign blog is going to be run with integrity and honesty. There, I think this incident shows Edwards has problems. People might well ask: if the chief blogger will airbrush history to protect herself, might she not do so to protect the candidate? And if so, what does that say about the candidate’s web site — and perhaps the candidate himself?
For these reasons, I hope he keeps Marcotte.
A campaign blog is quite different from a private blog. Whoever the candidate is, the whole point is to put a candidate in a positive light. Therefore, I’d expect any campaign blog, Democratic or Republican, to take a much heavier hand against negative posts than a private blog would.
Besides, as you point out, it isn’t particularly relevant to the Edwards campaign whether Marcotte wrote some embarrassing things in the past, disagrees with Edwards on some issues, is shrill, or is unreasonable. So Goldstein’s post on the Edwards board was distracting from the mission of the blog — to discuss Edwards and his positions, and not get all meta on ultimately minor and obscure (to America as a whole) insider blogosphere trivia.
Do you think it would be reasonable for another moderator to have removed Goldstein’s post as being off topic and derailing the intended course of discussion of a campaign blog? You got to admit, I think, that Goldstein’s post was fairly classic trolling and disruptive to the goal of the blog, which is to let people go to find out and discuss where Edwards (not Marcotte) stands on the issues. Any campaign blog is justified in removing posts from people who are there just to stir crap, and not honestly engage in a discussion of the merits of the CANDIDATE.
In other words, having admitted that none of Marcotte’s prior positions or embarrassing, shrill and unreasonable tone (your words of course) are a big issue, is the only issue here that she has a history of airbrushing (your words again)? If so, does that history prevent her from doing her job, which is to run a focused discussion and run off the trolls who detract from that discussion?
Finally, what evidence do we have that it was Marcotte who deleted Goldstein’s post from the Edwards blog in the first place? It might have been some other staffer doing his or her job.
Aplomb (b1076c) — 2/6/2007 @ 8:35 amThe “intended course of discussion” was Marcotte’s introduction to the gallery and the gallery’s response to that introduction. I am a member of that website, which is open to the public. I consider that a good thing, because I like to follow the positions of those who would presume to take over the reins of the world’s sole hyperpower.
And my post was quite on topic.
Also, I asked this on my own site, but I may as well repeat it here: Had I not signed my name to that post — had I instead acted like a concerned liberal and longtime Edwards supporter — would my arguments have been somehow magically more valid, or magically more “on point”?
Would the post have been deleted?
I have allowed that it may not have been Marcotte who deleted the post herself. But given that she has a history of such airbrushing at Pandagon, it doesn’t take much of leap to become suspicious.
Jeff G (6ce048) — 2/6/2007 @ 9:05 amHmmm.
Campaign bloggers have a staff?
Sign me up.
ed (0b5c51) — 2/6/2007 @ 9:24 amWhat job might that be? And who is in charge of that blog?
Pablo (cb50c5) — 2/6/2007 @ 9:27 am“Also, I asked this on my own site, but I may as well repeat it here: Had I not signed my name to that post — had I instead acted like a concerned liberal and longtime Edwards supporter — would my arguments have been somehow magically more valid, or magically more “on point”?”
Actually, Jeff, I think the answer to that is yes, although magic doesn’t have anything to do with it. A campaign blog is advancing a candidate by first providing information to potentially interested voters, and second by building a community of committed supporters. It’s not a free-for-all discussion of all the good and bad of the candidate, it’s selling a product. That just makes sense, whether the candidate is Republican or Democratic, for a campaign blog.
There’s a million other places for opponents to stir the crap about Edwards and Marcotte, so I’m not sure why you are surprised they won’t let you do it on their own campaign blog.
It’s kind of like the attitude RedState takes. They are trying to build a conservative community dedicated to Republican victory. If you post criticism of Bush from a conservative view, you can get away with pretty much anything. If you post criticism of Bush from a liberal view, you most likely will get banned. That’s fair enough, they want to hash things over without liberal “trolls” butting in and trying to change the focus of the discussion. (DKos is kind of similar from the Democratic side, but a bit lighter on the deletion and banning.) I’d certainly expect any campaign blog to cull out posts not intended to build a supportive community for the candidate, or posts containing questions and concerns of potential voters.
So, if you were to pose as a concerned liberal wondering how Marcotte’s presence may effect Edwards’ candidacy and expressing doubts as to Edwards’ judgment in hiring her, I bet your post would stand and be addressed and discussed. But if you go in as a reasonably well known opponent who obviously has no interest in supporting Edwards or offering a positive contribution to his blog, I kind of think of course you are going to be deleted. Why should any candidate keep an obviously hostile post around?
Look at it this way. Guiliani sets up a campaign blog. If you or a seemingly sincere conservative posts about his divorces and stance on abortion and wonders what this means about the man and his candidacy, I bet that post will stand and be discussed and addressed. If, say, TBogg were to list all the divorces and quotes about abortion in a way meant to embarrass Rudy, I would fully expect whoever ran the blog to delete the post. He wouldn’t be there to support Guiliani or at least get his questions answered, he’d be there to disrupt and embarrass the candidate on his own blog. You’d like to see that stopped, wouldn’t you, if you were sympathetic to a Guiliani campaign?
Aplomb (b1076c) — 2/6/2007 @ 10:00 amNo. That is in fact the same m.o. “that got him here” – suing Doctors for CP and suicides, when these occurrences are still ultimately Nature’s province, or at least beyond a certain point, not Medicine’s. Just what else has Edwards actually done? And so what’s out of character at all about Edwards hiring an airbrusher to alter reality? That used to be his own job.
At the same time, pointing out to the total jury pool the nature of the way this scam works and the nature of the people attempting the scam is certainly a legitimate question for subsequent voters who might want to avoid the adverse consequences of Edwards’ later verdicts against them, no matter what their political persuasion is. [h/t, Jeff Goldstein]
Winning is not everything when it comes to the evolving effect of the win on voters. And so far Edwards simply can’t be trusted to work for the benefit of anyone but Edwards, who is then in effect merely still using the airbrushing tactic to alter reality, while probably knowing it.
From Edwards’ point of view, why should he be concerned about any airbrushing whatsoever from his campaign?
J. Peden (8bf527) — 2/6/2007 @ 10:25 amI second Peden’s comment, it’s in character.
And besides, after watching him on Tim Russert’s program saying some of the most unreasonable things in a very reasonable tone, I don’t think he doesn’t need any help looking bad.
Veeshir (dfa2bf) — 2/6/2007 @ 10:37 amMe: “It might have been some other staffer doing his or her job.”
Ed: “Campaign bloggers have a staff? Sign me up.” No, I meant some other Edwards Campaign staffer. He also hired that one from Shakespeare’s Sister that I know of, and I assume there are others with moderator privileges.
Pablo: “What job might that be? And who is in charge of that blog?” That job is managing a campaign blog, including moderating message boards in a way to gain and build support for Edwards, which in some cases calls for deleting hostile posts. I thought I read Marcotte was in charge of it, but it’s not surprising that there are other moderators with ban and delete powers, is it?
Aplomb (b1076c) — 2/6/2007 @ 10:42 amThe accusations that Amanda “scrubbed” her blog are simply wrong. There was an egregious loss of a number of posts when they switched from Movable Type to WordPress. I was briefly consulted for help at the time (although I wasn’t really able to help). A number of us (Lauren, Amanda, Auguste, etc.) discussed the problems as they happened via Instant Messenger.
Furthermore, as Dan Riehl and so many others have taken pains to show us, in the eyes of wingnuts everywhere Amanda is “foul-mouthed” and inflammatory. No amount of “scrubbing” of her posts will ever change the fact that she is fond of the word “fuck.” Hundreds and hundreds of inflammatory and offensive-to-wingnuts posts are there to be devoured on Pandagon. What on earth is she supposed to have been hiding?
Finally, Dan Riehl is a clown. I was particularly touched by his gallant defense of the Pentagon’s honor, the office building having had its feelings badly bruised because Amanda’s site’s name is an “insulting” play on words.
The Liberal Avenger (b8c7e2) — 2/6/2007 @ 10:49 amWell to be fair she did expressly scrub the airport Duke rape case musings, but yes all the others seem to be tech related data loss.
Aplomb (b1076c) — 2/6/2007 @ 10:52 amWhat campaign blog wouldnt remove comments?
marc (f1cbf7) — 2/6/2007 @ 11:00 amShe explained what happened to the Duke post. Nothing being hidden there.
The Liberal Avenger (b8c7e2) — 2/6/2007 @ 11:02 amWhich Duke post, Avenger?
Dan Collins (93467a) — 2/6/2007 @ 11:03 amThe one she allegedly “scrubbed.”
Come on, Dan. Try to keep up with the rest of the class.
The Liberal Avenger (b8c7e2) — 2/6/2007 @ 11:08 amThe one she allegedly “scrubbed.”
How is it “allegedly” when she admitted to deleting it?
The Ace (085125) — 2/6/2007 @ 11:31 amIt can’t be both allegedly “scrubbed” and admittedly deleted.
marc (468fff) — 2/6/2007 @ 11:36 amMaybe she scrubbed it and then she admitted it.
DRJ (605076) — 2/6/2007 @ 11:47 amExcept the post she deleted. Which is the same quote that was in Jeff’s post which was deleted from the Edwards blog, when others critical of her weren’t. Just that one quote, which she wants to run and hide from. A wise person would apologize for their intemperance and retract it. Amanda did not and apparently will not.
If you approve, LA, you’re entitled to your opinion. But you’re not entitled to your own facts, and you and I have already discussed this at Beltway Blogroll, along with the numerous comments she deleted.
Sure, she can scrub her little world into her hateful little self image, but don’t pretend she isn’t doing so, LA.
Pablo (cb50c5) — 2/6/2007 @ 12:21 pmHeh.
Wonder what (if anything) Edwards thinks about all this. Campaigns this far out are pretty small operations – its hard to imagine he’s unaware of the dust-up.
Dwilkers (4f4ebf) — 2/6/2007 @ 12:28 pmI see where you’re coming from, but I think you understate the shrill, spittle-soaked, hate-filled ranting of Ms. Marcotte. That isn’t too bad in and of itself, but then it is followed by a dogged refusal to even acknowledge, or even let stand unmolested, opposing viewpoints. She’s an ideologue of the worst sort, and I don’t think it is inappropriate to bring that sort of thing up.
OHNOES (d573a4) — 2/6/2007 @ 12:41 pmWhy don’t they just call it an Edwardian Pep Rally then, or at least give some ideological criteria for posting/deleting, instead of seeming to invite us hapless mere citizens to a serious discussion about issues? It is the Internet, after all, don’t Che’ know.
[Not that I really want to go there any more than to DU, where people disappear in toto forever.]
J. Peden (8bf527) — 2/6/2007 @ 12:45 pmOf course it’s a pep rally. It’s their campaign! Want a discussion? Go somewhere else. Are people really shocked that a camapaign would act this way? What campaign wants its resources used against it? Do other campaign blogs do that?
marc (f55551) — 2/6/2007 @ 1:14 pmMarc,
Like all blogs, campaign blogs can do what they want. However, to be a credible blog, I think they should set basic rules and follow them. Most people expect blogs to welcome a variety of views, subject to limits on things like profanity and personal attacks, and even those limits are construed liberally at most blogs.
You seem to think that campaign blogs are different than other types of blogs and that everyone knows that, but I think campaign blogs are like company blogs. Both sell a product but, in the process, they should be candid, fair, and open to criticism instead of cherry-picking favorable comments and dumping the negative ones.
DRJ (605076) — 2/6/2007 @ 1:27 pmPut another way, you say people who want a discussion should go elsewhere. I say if the Edwards campaign doesn’t want a discussion, don’t host a blog.
DRJ (605076) — 2/6/2007 @ 1:29 pmPat “I Got Busted Posting A False Story About John Kerry” Tero (who needs the “ic” anyway),
Your post is simply all smear with no evidence. You do everything to maintain plausible deniability on your part while implying you believe Marcotte has done something wrong.
Well done … you are a treasure to the evidence-free zone that is rightwing punditry.
[There’s plenty of evidence at the link, my dishonest friend. — P]
Macswain (76d8da) — 2/6/2007 @ 1:33 pmNot wanting a discussion means don’t have a blog? Thats silly. Lots of blogs, company or not, don’t even allow comments.
I’d expect campaigns and companies to have the discretion to remove comments for just about any legal reason, including that they do not feel the comment in question does not advance their campaign or product. I have a hard time imagining that anyone would do otherwise in a professional setting.
marc (23e36b) — 2/6/2007 @ 1:51 pmLike here? I understand they’re looking for a conversation.
Pablo (08e1e8) — 2/6/2007 @ 1:52 pmAs I said, Marc, blog owners can do whatever they want. In fact, I’ll go further than you and say they can remove comments for any reason – it doesn’t have to be a legal reason, whatever that might be. But if someone has a blog with comments (which is what I thought we were discussing), then I think they should have a better method of dealing with critical comments than by selectively dumping them.
DRJ (605076) — 2/6/2007 @ 2:01 pmWhat sort of better method could there be? Like a policy other than their own discretion? A policy which would allow something that they felt hurt them but was outside of the policy to remain? I don’t think that would work.
marc (5fb648) — 2/6/2007 @ 2:30 pmBut i’ll add, I don’t think campaigns should be able to refuse comments for illegal reasons. If civil rights laws apply to campaigns, I don’t think they should be able to discriminate on the basis of sex and race, for example.
marc (5fb648) — 2/6/2007 @ 2:34 pmIt seems marc and I are the only ones who keep coming back to this, but it’s a campaign blog. It’s a marketing tool. It’s a rally point for supporters to see what’s the latest news and what they can do to get their candidate elected, or for potential supporters to learn more about the candidate. It is a pep rally, campaign brochure, speech and document dump, like-minded community social board, press release, and call to action all in one.
How can you expect anything other than dealing with critical comments “by selectively dumping them”? Randomly dumping them? Dumping all critical comments? Dumping none of them? The Edwards blog — any campaign blog — is going to walk the tightrope and dump the ones they find wholly unhelpful and disruptive, while at the same time leaving other critical posts up for discussion and rebuttal so the candidate doesn’t come off as wholly adverse to criticism and hopefully win some doubters over. It’s always going to be a judgment call by the moderators where to draw the line, and the line is always going to be shifting and somewhat dependent on how cranky or sick-of-it the moderators happen to be that day.
The blog is there to get Edwards elected. No one should expect it to be anything but run to put him in a favorable light. Some of that favorable light will come by showing the Edwards community is tolerant of and eager to address criticism by answering questions, discussing issues, and explaining away negatives.
But at some point the moderators are going to zap the posts that are wholly critical, by people who obviously aren’t supporters or potentially interested in seeing Edwards elected but rather have a completely opposite agenda. (Replace “Edwards” with every other candidate with a campaign blog.) Because those posts detract from the whole point of the campaign blog.
Do you expect some sort of poster’s bill of rights to be expressly stated and scrupulously followed, explaining exactly where and what are the boundaries of acceptable discourse? Those are great on general interest political blogs, although almost impossible to state and enforce with any regularity because you never can anticipate what people will write. But why would you expect that on a CAMPAIGN BLOG?
Aplomb (b1076c) — 2/6/2007 @ 2:40 pmDo any of the people who write for Protein Wisdom or Hot Air or Instapundit or here at Paterico, really want to have a President Edwards?
papertiger (9725e9) — 2/6/2007 @ 2:50 pmIf not then the rule is when your opponent shoots himself in the foot hand him more ammo.
Now would be a good time to post some issues on Edwards blog of a noxious nature that Marcotte agrees with even if she doesn’t want that agreement widely known. Then watch if those posts get the delete treatment.
I’ve got to agree with Aplomb and a couple of the others: Mr Edwards’ blog is a campaign blog, not a free-for-all debate. Mr Goldstein’s comment might have been thoroughly respectful, and still gotten deleted, because it didn’t advance the agenda of the campaign. Big deal.
While I made note of Miss Marcotte deleting her own post on the Duke case, and speculated that she might have been told to dump it, my larger point is that someone like Miss Marcotte might not be a good fit for the job, because the job will require a good blogger, someone who got good by being very open and honest about her opinions, to basically stifle herself.
It’s difficult to picture Miss Marcotte ever stifling herself! 🙂
(At this point, our esteemed host needs to insert a picture of Archie Bunker telling Edith to stifle.)
Dana (556f76) — 2/6/2007 @ 3:02 pmItaliacto!
Dwilkers (4f4ebf) — 2/6/2007 @ 3:05 pmHa, sorry the italics malfunction was obviously my fault.
Aplomb (b1076c) — 2/6/2007 @ 3:40 pmIt’s been great fun pointing it out, I must say.
Does anybody really think Edwards stands a chance of getting the nomination? Really?
If we can’t have a few, or a whole lot of laughs with this, what’s the point of him even running? I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m in it for the comedy.
Pablo (08e1e8) — 2/6/2007 @ 3:49 pmSure Pablo.
papertiger (a5e9bc) — 2/6/2007 @ 3:59 pmBut what is maximum fun? I think posting on Edward’s blog pretending that you are the most screeching moonbat Arkinite just to see Marcotte’s reaction would be most amusing.
Again, I know blog owners can do whatever they want with their blogs but that doesn’t make it smart. Smart politicians would use a blog to showcase talents, positions, good deeds, great endorsements, etc., and also to take and respond to comments, even critical comments. I think this is a better PR approach, even if the blog includes only a few critical comments per topic and the moderators delete the rest.
These days, it’s just good, smart PR to defuse bad things as soon as possible online. If nothing else, politicians can claim they’ve already dealt with that issue – and it happens in a forum that favors the politician because s/he has more control over the response. Bottom line: What people can do is not necessarily what they should do.
Having said all this, I’m not a John Edwards supporter so I think Amanda Marcotte is doing a great job.
DRJ (8b9d41) — 2/6/2007 @ 4:37 pmI never said Edwards shouldn’t have hired Marcotte. I just think it shows poor political judgment. And the premise of my original post over on the Edwards blog was to ask how she was going to reconcile her previous opinions with the official positions of the Edwards campaign.
In short, I was suggesting that she was a hypocritical sellout. Edwards can be judged on his own merits, but hiring someone with Marcotte’s history of bashing people of faith and just about everyone else who doesn’t believe in the cult of the dildo showed a willingness, on Edwards’ part, to reward imbecilic thought and the kind of white hot hatred you rarely see outside of faculty meetings.
Jeff G (6ce048) — 2/6/2007 @ 6:11 pmAmanda is a bigot. If Edwards wants to have his official blog run by a bigot, so be it. His blog his rights.
I’m just going to make some more popcorn and enjoy the show.
Darleen (543cb7) — 2/6/2007 @ 7:45 pmJeff, just as a hypothetical: do you think you are unsuited to be hired as an internet consultant to a Presidential candidate?
On the plus side, you can write well and would keep things interesting, and I think you have a certain fairness in terms of tolerating and responding to whatever anyone posts against you or your position. You’d actually be a good blog manager for a candidate you could support, I think.
On the negative side, even more than Marcotte probably, you have a history that would be brought up if you were to sign on with a candidate. There would be hundreds of posts on the liberal blogs about dicks being slapped into faces, and all that.
So, if Newt or Rudy or John or whoever decided, this guy Jeff knows his way around the internet and writes well, and could help me build an online presence, would you decline? And if so, would you decline because the very decision of picking you shows bad judgment on behalf of the candidate? Do you think your own online presence has tainted you so much that you should never get an internet related job from a credible candidate, because you would soil them so?
Should you or Amanda, who have carved fairly prominent online reputations in your own ways, be forever banned from working on anything respectable in terms of internet communities, just because you both posted all sorts of different nutty things on your own dimes?
I still think there is a huge difference between being basically a hobby blogger who puts up whatever they are thinking, and being the manager of a candidate’s blog. The latter is being a paid PR flack, basically. It’s a job, not a pastime. There is no reason to think Amanda is going to do other than promote Edwards to the best of her ability, without embarrassing him or herself. And, there is no shame in that. You can post whatever you want on your own blog, and if you are paid to maintain a blog by someone else you reign in your personal views and support the view of your employer. It’s not the best job, but there is no inherent shame in being a paid flack, especially if you basically agree with whatever the message is.
Just as you, Jeff, should you be offered a paid blogging role for some Republican, I bet you would suddenly temper your excesses and try hard to make sure your employer was put in the best light by toning down and trying to downplay all the penises slapping into faces. You would be hired for your ability to advocate and your internet savvy, and would be expected to tone down the negative stuff.
Aplomb (b1076c) — 2/6/2007 @ 8:10 pmFunny thing, that, ain’t it?
Pablo (08e1e8) — 2/7/2007 @ 2:06 amWhat about her white hot hatred for wealthy white southern Christian men?
Pablo (08e1e8) — 2/7/2007 @ 2:08 amAplomb asked Jeff Goldstein, who hasn’t yet replied:
Well, I’d say that he’s unsuited, and I like his work and read his site; I’m even registered there. I’d say that our host here would be unsuited, and I’d be unsuited and Dafydd ab Hugh would be unsuited for such a position, because all of us (note how I include myself, propping up my own site!) are doing this to express our opinions, strongly, in ways that candidates try to mealy-mouth.
To take the job the lovely Miss Marcotte obtained will require a blogger to stifle his own opinions, to relate those of his employer. Somehow, I have a difficult time seeing Mr Goldstein doing that — unless, perhaps, someone hired him to do campaign haiku.
I am, however, recommending that Hillary Clinton hire Deb Frisch as her campaign blogger! 🙂
Dana (3e4784) — 2/7/2007 @ 4:27 am[…] I share this attitude in general. The feeling, which Allah and I share, is that blogging has gotten too dangerous. This is one reason that I have said repeatedly that I hope Edwards keeps Marcotte. And if he has fired her, I hope he does rehire her. […]
Candy Slice of Life » Article » Will Edwards stand by his Amanda? Next on “As the Blog Turns” (923bb6) — 2/10/2007 @ 4:35 pm