In the Spirit of Fairness

The Huffington Post has a post: Are the Edwards Bloggers Bigots? The ubiquotous question mark has now become the call sign of headlines nowadays on television and, apparently, even crept into blog posts.

Cenk Uygur, the author of the post, states his views:

Bill Donohue, the president of the Catholic League has called the two liberal bloggers hired by John Edwards' campaign anti-Catholic bigots. Edwards has decided to keep them on the campaign anyway - which is undoubtedly the right decision - but also made clear he was not comfortable with their opinions on Catholicism.

I'm very happy that Edwards didn't give into the media maelstrom extortion that Donohue created. It's a great sign of progress that a presidential candidate has caught on to how the right-wing fake outrage machine works -- and stood up to it.

I have to say - what media maelstrom? The controversy was born, and virtually died in the blogosphere. The New York Times, and other MSM outlets didn't pick up for days. The Times, in particular, didn't publish an article about the issue until one day before Edwards decided to keep the bloggers in question on his campaign... when the "media maelstrom" was actually whipped up in the blogosphere.

Secondly, Uygur cites Vice President Dick Cheney's use of a swear word on the Senate floor. True, the Vice President was in error, and out of line. But there are two points to note here:

- Two wrongs don't make a right, and

- The Vice President's "Go fuck yourself" pales in comparison to Marcotte's swear-filled diatribes(cited here from Michelle Malkin):

"... I've been listening to CNN blaring throughout the waiting area and good
fucking god is that channel pure evil. For a while, I had to listen to how the
poor dear lacrosse players at Duke are being persecuted just because they held
someone down and fucked her against her will - not rape, of course, because the
charges have been thrown out."

and

"flog the bullshit victim-blaming crap,"

"...should have still been able to get out-bullshit,"

"arrogant assholes,"

"shit-stained clothes"

"too every fucking thing that we're told "real" Americans are not - we're to be a nation of white supremacists, hateful and paranoid and xenophobic..."

Regarding the Cheney curse, Uygur should have also noted the following:

LONG before he became the first president of the United States, a teenage George Washington transcribed a set of rules on civility, composed in the 16th century by Jesuit priests. Rule 49: ''Use no reproachful language against any one; neither curse nor revile.''

Last week, Vice President Dick Cheney forgot that rule. He used an obscenity in a heated -- and, he thought, private -- exchange with Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, in the Senate chamber. Now official Washington is buzzing about whether the vice president, who was irked at Mr. Leahy's persistent criticism of him, crossed a line.

Politicians are no strangers to salty language. Senator John Kerry created a stir last year when he used a vulgar phrase to describe President Bush's handling of the Iraq war. John F. Kennedy could curse a blue streak, though this did not become widely known until after his death. Lyndon B. Johnson's foul mouth was legendary. And Richard Nixon's Oval Office tapes were so full of vulgarity that when transcripts were released, the phrase ''expletive deleted'' became part of the American lexicon.

This excerpt comes from the New York Times, no less.

Finally, Uygur offers this justification:

Attacking someone's religious identity is unacceptable. Attacking their religious views, on the other hand, must be fair game. Saying all "Catholics are bad people" is crazy talk; saying "Catholic ideology on contraception is wrong" is obviously a perfectly acceptable opinion.

Again, he falls short. He is playing semantics. He also changes the argument by side-stepping the cursing and focusing on the context of the arguments, which is a red herring.

Finally, Uygur's most damning critique is the link he provides to quotes by William Donohue, one of the most vociferous critics of Edwards' bloggers.