Fired? Unfired? Who can tell... Leadership, Edwards style

The story so far. And now the news: Dean Barnett takes note of a blog post from John Edwards. Here's Edwards, first:

The tone and the sentiment of some of Amanda Marcotte's and Melissa McEwan's posts personally offended me. It's not how I talk to people, and it's not how I expect the people who work for me to talk to people. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that kind of intolerant language will not be permitted from anyone on my campaign, whether it's intended as satire, humor, or anything else. But I also believe in giving everyone a fair shake. I've talked to Amanda and Melissa; they have both assured me that it was never their intention to malign anyone's faith, and I take them at their word.

Dean observes that Edwards "neither stands behind the bloggers nor throws them under the bus. [His post] doesn’t say they’re staying, it doesn’t say they’re going. What leadership! ... [T]he candidate’s finger is still in the air. As always." I think it's implicit that they're staying, but Dean's correct that this is a weasel way out that keeps Edwards' options open - if in the next 48 hours or so the MSM picks up the story (as they had started to do yesterday) and reaction to Marcotte is more profoundly negative than the plaudits he gets in the leftosphere for at least appearing to stick it to the vast right wing conspiracy, he retains the ability to point back to this post and say "I never said I was keeping them. I said I was offended, that I'd talked to them, and that their vernacular has no place in my campaign."

The other consideration is that despite his cutesy disclaimers, Edwards has now been stripped of his heat shield. Before, he could credibly claim that he didn't know the blogging record of the bloggers he hired to blog for him. He could conceivably have covered his ass by throwing Marcotte's and some faceless staffer's off the bus. But if Edwards didn't know their record before, he sure does now. So if he agrees to keep them, no matter what he might protest to the contrary, it is patently obvious that he either agrees with or at least tolerates what Marcotte has said in the past.

Nor is it credible for him to try and finesse the point by saying that "they have both assured me that it was never their intention to malign anyone's faith." He concedes that he was offended by what they wrote, and what was it again that he wasn't going to permit from anyone on his campaign? Right, "that kind of intolerant language." Even if that were credible on its own terms (which is dubious - it's hard to believe that any reasonable user of the English language could visit Pandagon and be left in any doubt as to the views and preferred lexicon of its authors), this is still impossible to take seriously. The bottom line is that if you believe that they never actually intended to malign anyone's faith (interesting how tightly circumscribed this "concession" is - they assured him that they never intended to malign anyone's faith, but that isn't the only thing they've maligned), but were such utterly cack-handed writers as to routinely dress up innocuous points in language that you yourself found inflammatory, why the hell would you retain as a writer someone who you don't think can clearly express themselves in writing?!

Lastly, Edwards reassurance that "that kind of intolerant language will not be permitted from anyone on my campaign, whether it's intended as satire, humor, or anything else," rings completely hollow. If it is engaged in without consequence, it is ipso facto permitted. So either Marcotte is fired, or "that kind of intolerant language" is and will be permitted from people on his campaign.

John Edwards - thanks for playing "Damned if you do, damned if you don't." You win!

Update: the bulk of Pandagon commenters seem to be either furious at Edwards for taking such a candyass way out, or reluctantly biting their tongues out of pure political expediency ("I'd like him to have come out swinging, but I know that that would hurt him on the campaign trail"). A few have even noticed that Marcotte's quasi-apology is a humiliating face- and job-saving exercise.

Update 2: MKH quotes Marcotte's kowtowing quasi-apology: "My intention is never to offend anyone for his or her personal beliefs, and I am sorry if anyone was personally offended by writings meant only as criticisms of public politics." Translation: "I don't have anything against people believing all that religious crap in the privacy of their own home, I just think they're evil if they let those views affect their political views in any way." There seems to be some sort of weird leftie premise that religion is a purely private matter that shouldn't have any affect on how a person conducts themselves as a public or political actor, a view that I - even as an agnostic - find unfathomably stupid.

Moreover, here's Marcotte's take on the death of the late Chief Justice and the consequences thereof (via RedState):

I’m a hot, moist, inviting tw*t. Warm, wet, inviting. But not to you or your friends. Even if I were single, these nubile thighs do not wrap around the hips of Republicans. You can fuck yourselves or the dry tw*ts of the self-hating misogynists who will allow you tiny penis to penetrate them. Have fun! Um, the wounds you get from rubbing you un-lubricated dick repeatedly into your heartless, soulless woman–iodine is your best friend, my be-scarred friend.

I'm sure we can all agree that it clearly wasn't Marcotte's intention to insult anyone personally with that devastatingly concise "criticism[] of public politics." John Edwards, meet your bloggers.