Dum Pendebat Filius

And now the pseudo-scandal has made it all the way to the New York Times, thanks to a complaint from the Catholic League.

The Catholic League, a conservative religious group, is demanding that Mr. Edwards dismiss the two, Amanda Marcotte of the Pandagon blog site and Melissa McEwan, who writes on her blog, Shakespeare’s Sister, for expressing anti-Catholic opinions.

… Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, said in a statement on Tuesday, “John Edwards is a decent man who has had his campaign tarnished by two anti-Catholic vulgar trash-talking bigots.”

Mr. Edwards’s spokeswoman, Jennifer Palmieri, said Tuesday night that the campaign was weighing the fate of the two bloggers.

The two women brought to the Edwards campaign long cyber trails in the incendiary language of the blogosphere. Other campaigns are likely to face similar controversies as they try to court voters using the latest techniques of online communication.

I suspect the folks at John Edwards 2008 will be hiring themselves a new “blogmaster” pretty soon. It’s a shame, but it looks like that’s how it’s going to be.

In the words of Pilate, Quod scripsi scripsi (John 19.22). What has been written can never be unwritten.

=== UPDATE 2007/02/07 15:11 ===

Salon’s “War Room” reports that both Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan have been fired:

The right-wing blogosphere has gotten its scalps — John Edwards has fired the two controversial bloggers he recently hired to do liberal blogger outreach, Salon has learned. … Speculation from sources that the two bloggers might be rehired was bolstered by Jennifer Palmieri, a spokeswoman for the Edwards campaign, who said in an e-mail that she would “caution [Salon] against reporting that they have been fired. We will have something to say later.“

UPDATE 2007/02/08: They were rehired.