While the New York Times (unlike most of the media), manages to actually criticize Edwards' choice of campaign bloggers, it can't resist bashing bloggers (or, as I now prefer, bloggists):

Two bloggers hired by John Edwards to reach out to liberals in the online world have landed his presidential campaign in hot water for doing what bloggers do — expressing their opinions in provocative and often crude language.

All this sentence needs to make it fair is a simple modifier--"some." But they can't be bothered. Apparently all bloggers express their opinions in "provocative and often crude language."

Actually, I think it is largely (though even there, not completely) true of the types of lefty bloggers that a Democrat would choose as his campaign bloggers, and perhaps that's the only kind that the reporter reads. He should get out in the blogosphere more.

[Update a few minutes later]

ABC's Terry Moran criticizes Edwards choice as well, and manages to do so without bashing bloggers in general. Of course, he is one...

And the comments, with all the defense of Marcotte, are highly instructive.

[Update after noon]

One more thought. Elizabeth Edwards was running a diary for a while at Kos' site, so I suspect that she may not have seen anything she found exceptionable at Pandagon. If she made the hire recommendation, it'll be hot times in the old bedroom tonight. She (or whoever did) may have cratered the campaign before it even got started.

[Another update, a couple minutes later]

Looks like they're trying to put it down the memory hole:

The trash-talking Stalinists at Pandagon have removed or changed all the posts to which I responded in the links above; LGF reader Egfrow dug those Pandagon posts out of the Internet Archive, so you can see the kind of speech John Edwards thinks is “edgy.” These links go to the archived copies of the Pandagon posts:

Vitriolic Lefty Post of the Day
When Lefty Blogs Attack
Hysterical Leftist Post of the Day
The Marching Morons

Fortunately (and unfortunately for them) Google (and other web archivists) remembers all.

[Midafternoon update]

Jay Reding has further thoughts:

Like it or not, Ms. Marcotte may have the right to free speech, and no one is arguing that she should be censored. However, what she says is incindiary, derogatory, and bigoted. Had she treated Islam the way she treats Catholicism, she’d be widely ostracized. Marcotte represents everything that is wrong with the lefty blogosphere — the constant profanity, the invective, the elevation of childish snark above analysis. There are only a few left-wing bloggers who do anything resembling analysis, and while some of them are good (Joshua Micah Marshall comes to mind as an example) most of them seem to carry the attitudes of high school kids who think they’re “sticking it to the Man” by dropping cluster F-bombs. For anyone who doesn’t drink the Kool-Aid already, it’s not only unpersuasive, it’s horrendously off-putting.

Yes. And I'm always amused when the first resort of the leftists, whenever they are criticized for what they say, is to cry "Censorship!" and "Freedom of Speech!" when no one has proposed censoring them. We are only asking them to grow up, and accept responsibility for what they say and write. The First Amendment only says that Congress can't pass a law to prevent you from speaking. It doesn't protect you from the real-world consequences of thoughtless speech.

[Update at 3:15 PM EST]

And they're outta there! At least if Salon is to be believed.

This was a no-win situation for Edwards, because now the Kossites and DUers are going to be screaming for his scalp. And of course, in the lefty blogosphere, Marcotte et all will be martyrs for hatefree speech. And all because he didn't vet them before hiring them. I hope that he wouldn't make appointments in a government the same way he does in his campaign. But I fear he would.

[Evening update]

As predicted, the nutroots are unhappy.

[Evening update]

OK, well. Iowahawk has the f***ing scoop on how Amanda got the job.

Maybe the Times reads Arkin's blog.

Nah, they just think all bloggers are like our Anonymous Jew-hating troll ...

So John Edwards gets caught with his $500 pants down again. His bloggists put out there for all to read, exactly what he and his people espouse, now they want to spin it so it looks like a fluke.

I'm not sure how many of you know this, but the good ex-Senator is running on a platform of eliminating the 2 Americas. He wants to eliminate poverty, but he wants to do it with other peoples money, i.e. the taxpayers. His number 2 item on the agenda is affordable health care. At the same time, he is just moving into a 28,000 sq ft house that cost $9 million. He's worth an estimated $100 million.

I don' begrudge him or anyone their earnings or their right to expensive houses. But you can't be living like that and blame the two Americas on other rich people. He made his money suing health insurance companies using ficticiuos babies and junk science. He's one of the guys who ran OB/GYNs out of business and caused health insurance rates to go up.

This blogging boondoggle is just one more proof of his hypocrisy.

So John Edwards gets caught with his $500 pants down again. His bloggists put out there for all to read, exactly what he and his people espouse, now they want to spin it so it looks like a fluke.

I'm not sure how many of you know this, but the good ex-Senator is running on a platform of eliminating the 2 Americas. He wants to eliminate poverty, but he wants to do it with other peoples money, i.e. the taxpayers. His number 2 item on the agenda is affordable health care. At the same time, he is just moving into a 28,000 sq ft house that cost $9 million. He's worth an estimated $100 million.

I don' begrudge him or anyone their earnings or their right to expensive houses. But you can't be living like that and blame the two Americas on other rich people. He made his money suing health insurance companies using fictitiuos dead babies and junk science. He's one of the guys who ran OB/GYNs out of business and caused health insurance rates to go up.

This blogging boondoggle is just one more proof of his hypocrisy.

I prefer "blog-a-rators". Or maybe "bloggists", or "bloggies".

Of course, that's easy for me to say, 'cause I ain't one, and have no concern with them-as-a-group.

I found the general tone of the comments interesting; the "that's not hate speech, that's free speech" meme is especially telling.

Unless they mean "hate speech" as something that shouldn't be covered by the first amendment.

AFAICT political speech is generally covered by the first amendment, but that doesn't mean it's not wrong, distasteful, or hateful.

While the first amendment protects your right to be a jerk, well, you're still a jerk.