How I Spent My Winter Vacation By Amanda Marcotte

Amanda Marcotte responds at Salon to the recent controversy. Hopefully she made a few bucks for it, it isn't worth much in terms of reality. I will say it's unfortunate that she quit her job to join Edwards, but calling her stint there a career is a stretch.

She takes absolutely no responsibility for her choice of language in expressing her rancid opinions, which was all this was about. Instead, she, as expected, comes to the pathological conclusion that it was all about her being female. That doesn't even amount to a weak joke. But she's so obsessed with the concept of feminism, apparently she can't view anything without that prism. That alone is enough to confirm her basically confused point of view. The notion that people would not have responded precisely the same way were she male is utterly ridiculous. Even reasonable individuals on the Left should see that.

I thought some about content concerns, but my opinion had always been that bloggers who work for campaigns should feel free to have personal blogs, so long as they disclosed their employment to their personal blog readers and refrained from using their personal blogs to bash other candidates.

I think the world might have a slightly higher standard than that. I can't think of one political operative who wouldn't appreciate the fact that what they said or wrote while off duty wouldn't impact on their job.

I was aware that I didn't exactly fit the image people have of bloggers who join campaigns -- the stereotype being 30-something nerdy young white men who wear khakis and obsess over crafting their Act Blue lists. I wasn't aware that not fitting the image would attract so much negative attention. In fact, I mostly saw this all as a baby step in the direction of diversity, since McEwan and I differed from the stereotype mostly by being female and by being outspoken feminists.

Tell it to Mary Matalin or Donna Brazile, both of whom have run a Presidential campaign.  It is simply bizarre that she sees gender in everything when it obviously isn't there.

Dan Riehl apparently thought it would speed my firing if he suggested that I was not as hot as "American Pie" actress Shannon Elizabeth...

Which, as I've already posted, was not what I said. As for this below, the fire was in her prose, for which she seems unwilling or unable to take any responsibility. And comparing her controversy to Vince Foster, Whitewater, Clinton and WMD is such a stretch, I think she may have actually snapped.

The right-wing noise machine's favorite trick, possibly its only trick, is to select a target and start making a fuss, hoping that by creating the appearance of smoke, just enough people will be fooled into thinking there's a fire ... It was the method used to railroad Bill Clinton (Whitewater, Vince Foster, state troopers) and the method that ushered the nation into war with Iraq (WMDs and so on).

Perhaps her next job should be writing cheesy romance novels for teens. It would be more serious work than this one, after all.

... the existence of a fresh young feminist target.

At least she finishes with her usual flair. Given that the only possible thing phony in all this is if she gets it but is simply choosing to play coy, one can only hope she's finally done.

Looking back, the detail that astonishes me the most is the sheer amount of ink, air time, and energy devoted to keeping this phony scandal going until McEwan and I felt we had to resign. One question that's hard to avoid is how much of the venom had to do with the fact that McEwan and I were young women entering into a field (Internet communications) that's viewed as almost monolithically masculine. From my vantage point, it appeared that sexism was one of the primary motivating energies behind the campaign. Even before Donohue stepped in, various right-wing bloggers were obsessed with my gender and sexuality. As I noted at the time of my resignation, the majority of the hate mail I was receiving was from men, and almost all the e-mails made note of my gender or suggested that I would be a more pleasant woman if I wasn't so "angry." Bluntly put, I find it hard to believe that many men would end up being denounced on TV for using words like "fuck" or "cunt" on their blog and expect to receive piles of e-mail offering an opportunity to suck the sender's dick.

Frankly I find her and her response rather sad. As for the last bit, my more unhinged trolls don't usually ask me to suck it, they usually type it as more of a command.

Comments

[JimK]

Once again, Amanda is more obsessed with her own vagina than anyone else is.

People complained because she was a hateful, spiteful human being being chosen to represent to bloggers a man who wanted to be President. If she was a man, the response would have been exactly the same.

Therein lies the problem: Marcotte sees everything through the opening be6tween her legs. She can't understand that it's the content of her character that has been found lacking.

[seekeronos]

I think Amanda's nether bits probably house some monstrous creature of legend, like the "vagina dentata", or perhaps the "Octopussoir" from the Comedy Network "cartoon reality show".

Fortunately for us men-folks, nobody need ever fear getting within a country mile of that snatch of doom.

[ether]

This is satisfying.

[w3]

What an interesting paradox. The liberal feminist as illustrated by Marcotte demands to be treated like one of the boys except she wants special treatment because she's a woman. Or worse: wants the rules changed to accommodate the thin skin that, by implication, comes with her gender.

Either play by the rules or don't play. If you prefer to cry on the sidelines, prepare for ridicule. It's a pretty simple concept.

[Jeff]

Looks like she got obliterated by "the conservative noise machine"

How does that feel?

Truth is, radical feminists are always contradictory, look at the most famous one, Gloria Steinem. She said that marriage was evil etc. and then... she got married.

I see you guys have already noticed the contradictory nature of liberals and liberalism, but if you haven't already, read the book "Do as I do, Not as I say." It's a quick read, and profiles liberal hypocrasy.

[Bandit]

What an effing crybaby...it's everybody elses fault ... how about just taking a little responsibility for your actions?

[Buzzy]

Actually I'm betting that Mandy's next job is speech writing for al-Zawahiri. She'd look good in a burqua and they both hate Christians and Catholics in particular.

[Hard Right]

Wow. Everybody summed it up quite well. All I can add is that she did it to herself. She says she never meant to insult anyone's religion, then turns around and does that very thing a day or two later. Glad you were forced to quit you waste of human flesh.

[precious]

grrrr ruff ruff rufff... yip yip yip yelp... grrrr ruff yelp yelp yelp

[Phoenix]

Fortunately for us men-folks, nobody need ever fear getting within a country mile of that snatch of doom.

Posted by: seekeronos |

ha ha. Best line ever....and by a 'real' social conservative.

Nothing like a 'snatch of doom' to bring liberals and conservatives together.

Well done, Dan. :) ...er... uh.. Ms. Marcuntte

[bsg]

Dan, you are an asshole.

So say we all.

[Rick]

At last...Jeff Gannon is avenged!

Cordially...

P.S. Dan, you may ignore bsg and his tapeworms.

[Matt]

Another sad thing is Miss Marcotte believes only conservatives can be chauvanists, or homophobes. I do not believe either party has the monopoly on that. Choosing to bash Catholicism, she alienated a group while under employ for the Edwards campaign that tend to be from the North, and vote predominatley Democrat.

But then again, maybe Miss Marcotte intentionaly decided to do irreparable harm to Edwards, and her career by offering herself as a martyr for her militant feminist cause. After all isn't Hillarious Clinton running? Why should another man win?

Laugh at this prospect if you want but I think she is just that sick, and delusional.