Cow Pies
Another win for sacred cows! They continue to poop at will in American politics.
Earlier this month, Mr. William Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights demanded that two of John Edwards campaign bloggers, Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwen, be fired over posts they wrote on their personal blogs prior to starting work for Edwards’ presidential campaign.
An uproar ensued and accusations flew back and forth. Both bloggers ended up resigning. Marcotte on February 12 and the McEwen the day after.
Good bloggers can be provocative and sarcastic. They are not pretending to be totally objective; they are writers writing with a particular point of view. They want to get people talking; they want to get a reaction going. Sometimes in an effort to do this, or out of frustration, they go over the top. The bloggers took issue with the Catholic Church’s stances on abortion, contraception and homosexuality. However, the tone and some of their wording was offensive–even to me who would have agreed with them right down the line on every word they said.
Liberal journalists have screwed up time and again in their handling of organized religion. I don’t know why they can’t seem to get that people’s deepest feelings are involved, and if they are to be effective in their criticism, they need to keep that uppermost in their mind at all times. Personally, I think a lot of the people who are most voracious in their criticism of religion, especially the Catholic Church, have been deeply wounded by it, or are terribly afraid of it, and are acting out of that hurt or fear. So, readers can sense the writing has an edge that doesn’t belong there.
On the other side, apologists like William Donohue and Abraham Foxman have fine-tuned a tactic to cast every criticism as prejudice. At the first whiff of challenge or criticism to the positions they watchdog–and constantly politically promote–they start accusing the other of being “anti-Catholic” or “anti-Semitic”. This is usually enough to quash the criticism–which was their only intent. It is a bullying tactic that they have used to tremendous advantage for their organizations.
Sacred cows continue to poop and fart and piss anywhere. Liberals need to know cows are cows and can’t change what they are. But anyone used to dealing with cows knows what’s about to happen when the tail starts to lift. Move over to the side, wait for them to finish, and start herding them along again.
http://pandagon.net/2007/02/12/announcement
