Edwards Strategist Not Liberal Enough for Commenters at Time Blog

Time magazine's "Swampland" blog last week gave former Rep. Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Tex.) a platform as guest blogger and left-wing readers quickly pounced with all the juvenile invective they could muster. One commenter to Armey's valedictory post wished that Armey would eat sh*t and die, albeit saying so with more flowery language: "May you engage in coprophagy, then shuffle off this mortal coil."

Perhaps seeking to establish balance in the guest roster, this week "Swampland" invited John Edwards staffer David "Mudcat" Saunders into the electronic quagmire. Saunders is most notable for his role in guiding Mark Warner (D-Va.) to victory in the Old Dominion governor's race in 2001.

But the reception for Saunders is hardly any warmer than that of Armey, even though Saunders is far to the left of the former congressman's laissez faire economic preferences that were much-maligned by Joe Klein and company last week.

Although Saunders is an advocate of class warfare, the radically left-wing readers of "Swampland" aren't buying Saunders as a true liberal. In fact, crude and unfair stereotypes of Saunders and other white Southerners are frequently cropping up in the comments fields for today's posts:

Posted by p_lukasiak
June 11, 2007

While anything would be an improvement over Dick Armey, the fact that Saunders received a glowing profile from The Weekly Standard doean't precisely fill me with anticipatory delight. From the sound of it, Saunders specialty is in appealing to White Southern males....

actually, 'pandering to White Southern males' would be more accurate.

And quite frankly, the amount of ignorance and bigotry of white southerners that has been demonstrated for decades is completely antithetical to enlightened politics. We don't NEED the south to win...and the Democrats shouldn't debase themselves trying to find ways to effect their own "Southern Strategy".

Posted by Derek
June 11, 2007

I would also like to suggest, as I have in the past, that it would be great if this site brought in a real Liberal every once in a while. What a joy it would be to see someone here, who doesn't think New York, and the east and west coast in general, are Eevil. A person who has some appreciation for logic and facts, like all us dirty Internet hippies do, would be great.

Posted by patroclus
June 11, 2007

Jay, please get someone who actually criticizes the Republicans, who are actually in power in the U.S. And, instead of getting someone who merely insults his readers, please get someone to post here that will actually discuss policy from time to time.

[...]

Posted by Derek
June 11, 2007

I confess to living in a big city, that has an opera house, and just wanted to offer an apology to Mudcrap for the fact that I exist, and have never had sex with my cousins.

With comments like that, it makes you think the only blogger with an Edwards connection the crowd would go ga-ga for is Amanda Marcotte.