Unfired
The Edwards campaign has released a statement to the press regarding the blogger brouhaha. Salon.com was indeed premature in reporting that Amanda and Melissa had been fired (and of course all of us who passed it along were premature in doing so, too). They’re not fired, and they’ve agreed to be on their best behavior.
=== UPDATE 2007/02/08 21:33 ===
According to Salon.com, they have been “rehired,” i.e. they were, at one point, fired.
Salon reported yesterday that on Wednesday morning the Edwards camp fired Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwen, the two bloggers whose hiring had sparked an uproar by conservatives. That information was confirmed by sources in and close to the campaign. But almost as soon as the decision had been communicated to the bloggers, a struggle arose within the campaign about possibly reversing it, the sources said, as the liberal blogosphere exploded. … Sources told Salon that much of Wednesday was spent in a series of conference calls among campaign members trying to hash out a solution to the very difficult problem of what to do with the bloggers, debating the details of their departures or the possibility of their swift reinstatement. These discussions culminated, according to sources inside and close to the campaign, in calls last night from Edwards to the bloggers, in which he asked them to come back to the campaign.
So, has John Edwards shown himself to be:
A. a stand-up guy who ultimately stood up for his controversial low-level campaign staffers in the face of right-wing bullying, or
B. a useless girly-man who didn’t even have the guts to stand up to the unhinged moonbats of the Left-Liberal Blogosphere?
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February 9th, 2007 @ 08:24
I’ll go with ’stand-up guy’. I’ve already given you my opinion on Amanda, but I like the fact that Edwards didn’t fold from the pressure from the right. He can fire her after all this dies down.
February 9th, 2007 @ 12:16
I, too, think Edwards showed some spine in standing up to that display of manufactured outrage from the kooky-con right wing. (That looney-tune Donohue from the Catholic League really needs to get over himself.)
But they got to talk some more trash about Edwards no matter what:
-Had he fired his bloggers, it would have showed he was an idiot who didn’t do his homework before hiring them in the first place, and that he was a weak sister who could be pushed around.
-But, having stood his ground against the kooky-cons, they’re now trying to spin it as weak Edwards caving in to the moonbat Libs. “He wants to stand up to North Korea and The Terrorists, and he can’t even stand up to Daily Kos and MyDD.com!!??!?”
February 10th, 2007 @ 03:36
The lesson I take from this is that Edwards showed poor executive leadership, management and decision making. His senior campaign appointees failed to adequately review their hires. When a problem emerged, he (or his executives) made a decision to terminate two employees that had caused long term, strategic harm to his campaign, but then they immediately waivered on this very decision. So at least two bad decisions were made - the hiring, and the firing.
This speaks of an enterprise that is having difficulty making good decisions in staffing, and an inability to make difficult decisions when required. It’s not a good omen for his camp. It’s early on in the campaign, so he could learn a lesson and move on, but there’s no doubt that he’s lost some Catholic voters on this one. This will die down in the early primaries, but in the general election if he gets the nomination Edwards could get hammered on it. I think he’s taking a long term strategic risk by keeping these employees on the payroll.
For democratic primary voters, they should ask themselves this: Would Clinton, Obama, Biden or the others have allowed this staffing issue into their campaigns? Would they have waivered or backtracked on the decision to terminate? Is this a sign of a weak executive? Difficult questions for them to consider.
On another hand, if you’re a foreign leader in an any manner of relationship with the U.S. (especially Korea, Iran, etc.) how do you read this one? How would you prepare to deal with this executive if he comes to power? You can bet these issues are being monitored by states the U.S. will negotiate with on issues from trade to weapons & warfare.
Lastly, I’m digging that our society puts these issues on the voters’ plates. They’re important for the electorate to consider as they decide on the next president.
February 13th, 2007 @ 14:50
There was apparently nothing Edwards could have done that wouldn’t have made him look weak, according to this guy, who is the subject of an approving link from Malkin:
No matter what Edwards did, he was “bowing to pressure,” it seems.