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. ...
That two young feminist women were the targets of such a strenuous harassment campaign from bloggers and the Catholic League hints of more being at stake than scalp-collecting for conservatives. The posts that sent Donohue into a well-financed swoon were on topics such as the right to abortion, the right to contraception and gay rights. Donohue and the long list of culture warriors on the league's board of advisors are dedicated to stomping out those very rights McEwan and I were defending. It's unlikely they took issue with just the coarse, comedic vernacular that we used to defend those rights.
Regardless of its motive, the result of the smear campaign was to send a loud, clear signal to young feminist women. It tells them that campaigning for Democratic candidates, and particularly doing so in positions that would help the candidate connect with young feminist communities like the one that thrives in the blogosphere, is a scary, risky prospect.
What self-serving twaddle. It's not their feminism that got them in trouble, it's their filthy mouths and extreme anti-Christian spite. There are plenty of feminists who share their convictions about abortion rights, gay rights, the Catholic Church and what not, to whom it wouldn't occur to express those views in blasphemous, pornographic and hugely insulting terms. Marcotte wants to be able to be praised for her lurid opinions by her online fans, but doesn't want to be held responsible for them by the wider community. Can't have it both ways.
There is something to be said about the worrying phenomenon of one's antagonists taking something controversial one said on a blog, twisting it and using it in a smear campaign. A few months after 9/11, on The Corner, Rich Lowry and I were discussing what the US should do if Islamic terrorists nuked an American city. We raised the prospect of whether or not the US should retaliate by obliterating an Arab Muslim city -- even Mecca -- or should have a stated policy that this would happen. I wrote that the US should respond in kind against Arab capitols (I no longer believe that, for the record, and regret even having considered it), and that while nuking Mecca would be emotionally satisfying to Americans who had just seen one of their own cities annihilated by Islamic terrorists, it would be a bad idea. And I said it was insane even to be talking this way. To this day I hear from this or that angry Muslim accusing me of being an advocate for dropping a nuclear bomb on Mecca, when I do not advocate any such thing, nor have ever advocated it.
So yes, it does happen that one's ideological opponents can twist one's blog words for the sake of smearing. But that's not what got Marcotte and McEwan into trouble. They got in trouble not for what they didn't say, but for what they plainly said. Judging by their ages, it could well be that Marcotte and McEwan inhabit the world detailed by Emily Nussbaum in this must-read New York magazine article, a world in which young people blog all their thoughts and actions online, and don't think there are any real consequences for it. Well, ladies, welcome to the real world.
To be honest, it's not a world I'm keen about living in. Though I think Marcotte and McEwan got what they deserved in losing their gigs on the Edwards campaign, it must be said that it's frightening to think that something stupid any of us might have written online when we were young and didn't know any better could follow us forever, and even affect our employment prospects. But that's the world we're in now. Thank God they didn't have blogs when I was in my twenties. Don't blog while drunk. And don't blog anything you can't defend if it ends up on the front page of the paper. Because it just might.
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Susan S., As I've posted before, the notion that no one who might have voted for Edwards was offended by Marcotte's comments is just nonsense. I am not part of "the right-wing blogosphere." I have never even voted for a Republican, let for alone a "far-right" Republican, and yet somehow I was offended by Marcotte's comments. Account for that. How was it possible? Aren't there *any* conceivable grounds for being offended by Marcotte's comments besides being on the "far-right." If one is a Christian -- or just has good manners -- does that make one "far-right" by definition?
I just read Minkoff's reply. It seems to me that she commits the ad feminem fallacy: she accuses her opponents of mysogyny while not critiquing their argument.
Here's how one can figure out if a fallacy is being committed. Ask yourself this question: Even if all the character flaws of the arguer were true does it any way affect the quality of the argument being offered? The answer in this case is clearly "no." Minkoff's critics could be child-molesting racist cannibals and that would have absolutely no bearing on whether the criticisms of Minkoff hold water. On the other hand, if her critics were deeply committed humanitarians that too would contribute nothing to the quality of their case. So, Minkoff commits the ad feminem fallacy in about as clear a fashion that one can imagine. Ironically, by focusing on her opponents rather her opponents' arguments, Minkoff reinforces, rather than dispels, the judgment of her critics that she is gifted in crafting personal attacks but wanting in the power of reason.
Connie, I've noticed a few posts on various threads mentioning that the Minkoff meme is a stretch. These have passed, I think, without comment. Let me comment. Having just finished "Confederacy of Dunces" for the second time just this week, and having read our intrepid feminist blogger's posts at Pandagonnutz, I assure you, the similarity between the two is stunning. Marcotte explicitly decribes (is there any other way for her?) how she rebels against The Man with SexSexSex (combined with contraceptives and abortifacients of course). This is exactly what the literary minx of Toole's book does (cf. Rod's original post on the matter).
Susan F: Sorry. I didn't mean to imply.
Actually, the scorn was heaped upon them because of the way they responded--riots, arson, marching with placards calling for beheadings, etc. Regardless, the point was made that there was nothign more repugnant to human dignity than having one's religious beliefs blasphemed. It's still blasphemy whether it's about Islam or the RCC. We don't get to wear the "good victim of blasphemy" placard. That we respond to it so politely while they respond so violently is either proof of our enlightenment, or proof that we're more than a little numb to it nowadays.
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