John Edwards has decided not to fire Amanda Marcotte. In making this move, Edwards is taking my advice — but will I get any credit? Ha!

Seriously, I think this is excellent news. And the way it happened — with blatant dishonesty from Edwards and non-apology apologies from Marcotte & Co. — was priceless. I will elaborate later if I get time. If you can’t wait for more detailed analysis, Allah has the best take.

UPDATE: Salon has the backstory, which, summarized, is that the reversal is attributable to the lefty bloggers’ collective tantrum. I can’t see how any rational conservative could find this to be anything but encouraging. If I could put Atrios, TBogg, and the Sadly, No! crowd in charge of the campaign of the eventual Democratic frontrunner, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

Don’t kid yourself: the Democrat, most likely Hillary, will win in 2008 regardless. But putting the nutroots in charge of her campaign would give us a decent shot.

UPDATE x2: The first draft of Marcotte’s apology:

My intention is never to offend anyone for his or her personal beliefs, and I am sorry if the godbags were personally offended by writings meant only as criticisms of public politics.

I wonder what’s so great about being a campaign blogger anyway. You have to be just as bland and utterly dishonest as your candidate, but without the power and privileges he enjoys. And the upside is . . . ?

I heard Hugh Hewitt on the radio yesterday, discussing the Texas Border Patrol Agents case with Erwin Chemerinsky and John Eastman. The three of them disagreed on very little, and I agreed with almost everything that all three of them had to say. Here are the basics — and I’m going from memory here:

First, until we have a chance to review the trial transcript, we’re all speculating about what the facts shown at trial truly were.

Second, there is nothing particularly suspicious about the fact that the trial transcript has not yet been produced.

Third, these inmates deserve to be properly segregated in prison, and if one of them was beaten because he was not properly segregated, then that is a tragedy and those responsible should be punished.

Fourth, if the Department of Homeland Security lied to Congress about certain facts associated with the case, then that is unacceptable, and there should be severe consequences for those responsible, up to and including criminal sanctions if appropriate.

Here are the latest developments as I understand them.

(more…)