A very good summaryfrom Massimo Calabresi of the Marcotte/Edwards Blog story and the issues surrounding campaign politics & blogs.

(Though the corrections at the bottom are a welcome admission of a previous story being inaccurate it is a disappointment after reading a really good article)

Update: The two bloggers are safe (for now?). The sad thing for the girls is that they just came into this job and will now spend a good amount of time living this down and knowing they hurt their candidate personally and possibly professionally. As I said in a previous post it was Edward’s job (the job of his campaign) to actually read the blog posts of the people they were hiring.

It is neither of the girls fault, what they wrote was public record, but it is a lesson for them and all bloggers that it is easy to sling arrows and share your personal life’s details from behind the LCD. It is a whole other thing to have to live with what you put out.
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I am kind of surprised the John Edward’s blogger scandal (posted about here and here and here) has blown up this much. CNN reported on it and now Salon is reporting that Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, the two bloggers at the heart of this thing, have been fired. Or possibly fired and re-hired. They aren’t sure and the Edwards campaign appears to be silent on the subject.

I am sure more will come out today. I pretty much chuckled when I first heard the term scandal associated with this but in election season I guess pretty much anything can blow up to a whole, as the West Wing would frequently coin, “thing”.

As blogged yesterday John Edwards choice for blog master, Amanda Marcotte, has been under some fire recently. Here is some of the latest. Michelle Malkin vlogs and rips into Marcotte using her own profanity laden words against her.

Meanwhile upon feeling the heat over her past posts it appears Marcotte began cleaning up her past posts which is chronicled in stunning detail at OverLawyered, The Locker Room and if you want to see what other bloggers are saying about the issue checkout The Beltway Blogroll.

I don’t necessarily think I would call it that yet BUT there are some interesting questions coming up. I mentioned last week that John Edwards had hired two bloggers to staff his campaign blog. One of those bloggers, Amanda Marcotte, has been feeling some heat as others in the blogosphere sift through her personal site and pull up some interesting comments from the past.

As a blogger myself, who took down several older sites I wrote in my late teens/early twenties, I understand what it’s like to have your own words thrown back at you. Not in such a public way but the nature of blogging (writing quick rants and opinions) is bound to cause problems.

I also understand the precarious position you are in when you use this medium as a means of political argument and you trash someone. Then when you work in a job that pits you right in that persons office for one thing or another you have to sit there knowing your name is now signed in AND also attached to a bunch of blog posts trashing that person. Will they make the connection? Will they care? Chances are no, until your own name is public at which point someone is bound to start looking.

As more people blog the risk of being Dooced or simply of offending the people you love or work with rises. As bloggers are hired onto campaigns or corporations to do what they do best, the risk is pretty high that what made them credible to the public can now make them a liability.

imho, I believe it is the job of the campaign managers and the corporate managers to actually read the blogs of the people they hire (to blog and perhaps otherwise) just as they would vet their own candidate. Blogs are about immediacy, throwing your deepest thoughts out and not looking back. It makes for captivating reading but it also makes for potential problems, not just for the organization for the individual.

John Edwards, who seems to be moving heavy into the area of “grassroots” Internet activism has hired blogger Shakespeare’s Sister as a ‘netroots coordinator’ and Amanda Marcotte also known as Pandagon as the ‘Blogmaster’.

New times, new titles I guess.

For my commentary, as a blogger I like the idea of other bloggers getting jobs. Especially in politics. As an observer I like the idea of bloggers on campaigns keeping up our view of the behind the scenes aspects of the campaign.

Beyond that, I am not entirely convinced on this whole using other people to keep a candidates blog thing. Running elections are about winning. Paying people to preach to the converted is wonderful for keeping the base filled with the campaigns slogans, rhetoric, related news etc. It keeps the troops happy, but will these blogs reach out to new voters? Of that I am not so sure.

There is also an intimacy about blogs. You get to know the people behind them, what they stand for, what they believe in, how they think. It is an ideal way to connect people to the candidate directly. Put people between that connection and I am not so sure if it works.

ElectionGeek got a trackback at World and Global Politics Blog for yesterdays recap of Senator Joe Biden’s comments about Barack Obama. ["I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,"] So thank you for that.

Meanwhile as predicted the story is spreading through the blogosphere and the mainstream media. The New York Times reports Biden Unwraps His Bid for ’08 With an Oops! which includes a statement made by Al Sharpton to Senator Biden in a phone call “I told him I take a bath every day”. The article also provides a good point by point reconstruction of the events after Biden made the comment.

The Washington Times writes Nothing clean or bright in Biden’s ‘08 opener.

On the Blog front Chili Dog Blog writes Get out, Joe, while you still have a shred of dignity

Black MYstory blogs in Biden showing his true colors? that if Biden had been a Republican the left would have “blown this to epic proportions”.

The Largest Minority adds some thoughts along with a clip from Biden’s Daily Show appearance where he talks about the incident.

Reporting for ABC News former Rocketboomer Amanda Congdon gives some thoughts about the move online for candidates. What to know, what to be aware of