The Associated Press is reporting Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards responded harshly Ann Coulter’s "faggot" remark. At an appearance in Berkeley, California, he said:
"I think it is important that we not reward hateful, selfish, childish behavior with attention. I also believe it is important for all of us to speak out against language of this kind; it is the place where hatred gets its foothold, and we can’t stand silently by and allow this kind of language to be used."
If only the former Senator would follow his own advice. Didn’t he reward "hateful, selfish, childish behavior" by hiring two harsh feminist, anti-Catholic, anti-Christian bloggers and then refusing to fire them? On the February 16 edition of CNN’s The Situation Room, host Wolf Blitzer asked him about his staffers (unlike the evasive anchors Meredith Vieira at NBC, Terry Moran at ABC, and Bob Schieffer at CBS). Edwards passively said that he "rejected" their statements and he "strongly disagrees with them." He stated that their resignations were "a personal decision" and dismissed the criticism as coming "particularly from people on the far right of the political spectrum." The transcript from The Situation Room is below.
BLITZER: "There, there was a little bit of an uproar recently when you hired two bloggers who had written critical comments of the Catholic Church before they started to work for you. Since then, they've both resigned from your campaign. Let me read to you one of those things that Amanda Marcotte wrote. ‘The Catholic Church is not about to let something like compassion for girls get in the way of using the state as an instrument to force women to bear more tithing Catholics.’ What do you make of this, this controversy? And what, what does it say about your campaign?"
EDWARDS: "Well, I said, as soon as I found out about this, that a number of the statements that had been made by these women before they ever came to work for my campaign were statements that I rejected, strongly disagreed with. I spoke to them directly and personally. They both assured me they had no intention of denigrating anyone's faith. They apologized. They said they would not do it in the future while working for me. I took them at their word and I stood by them because of that. They made a personal decision, because of a lot of the heat they were coming under, the fire they were coming under, particularly from people on the far right of the political spectrum, that this was not something they wanted to go through. Speaking for me, I took them at their word when they said they did not mean to denigrate anyone's faith."
BECK: "So you learned a lesson from this. What is that lesson, Senator?
EDWARDS: "Well, the lesson -- you learn lessons in everything you do in life, including in political campaigns, Wolf. And the lesson is we're entering a new brave world with the net and with the blogosphere. And it's a powerful world. It's a world that's going to have a huge impact and should have a huge impact on the way we do politics in America. Because the Net and the blogosphere is grass roots politics at its best. But candidates can't control what people say. We believe in free speech in this country. And this is democracy. People have a right to express their opinions."
