Edwards Will Stand by His New Bloggers

A Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, is averting a politically damaging clash with liberal bloggers by rejecting a call to fire two campaign staffers who used vulgar and allegedly anti-religious language in recent blog posts. Left-leaning online activists had bluntly threatened to abandon Mr. Edwards's campaign for the Democratic nomination if he acceded to the demand from the Catholic League to dismiss the two Web-savvy women, Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan.

"The tone and the sentiment of some of Amanda Marcotte's and Melissa McEwan's posts personally offended me," Mr. Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, wrote in a statement yesterday. "It's not how I talk to people, and it's not how I expect the people who work for me to talk to people. … But I also believe in giving everyone a fair shake."

Mr. Edwards said the pair assured him "that it was never their intention to malign anyone's faith, and I take them at their word."

The president of the Catholic League, William Donohue, accused Mr. Edwards of succumbing to pressure from the Democratic Party's left wing. "John Edwards has apparently decided there is more to be gained by aligning himself with the cultural left than by standing on principle and firing the Catholic bashers on his payroll. Had anyone on his staff used the ‘N-word,' he or she would have been fired immediately," Mr. Donohue wrote.

The Catholic group called attention to a June 2006 posting on Ms. Marcotte's blog, Pandagon, in which she referred in graphic and crude terms to God inseminating the Virgin Mary. Writing in December, she argued that the church was opposing the so-called morning-after pill "to force women to bear more tithing Catholics."

Mr. Donohue also accused Ms. McEwan of anti-Catholic bigotry, though the basis for that claim was less clear. In November, on her blog, Shakespeare's Sister, Ms. McEwan described President Bush's key supporters as his "wingnut Christofascist base." The Catholic group also seemed disturbed by Ms. McEwan's penchant for a vulgar term for female genitalia.

A liberal Web magazine, Salon, reported that the two staffers were told Wednesday that they were fired, but, as a backlash to the reported firings grew on the Web, Mr. Edwards called the women and agreed to rehire them. A spokeswoman for the campaign did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment for this article.

One prominent liberal blogger, Chris Bowers, crowed that a "right-wing smear job" had been derailed. "The vast majority of established Beltway consultants would have told Edwards to fire Melissa and Amanda," Mr. Bowers wrote. "Any other campaign in a similar situation will now be judged by the yardstick Edwards has laid down."

An attorney who formerly advised Democratic presidential campaigns, Carol Darr, said Mr. Edwards's response was expedient in the short term, but could have consequences down the road. "He's dodged this bullet, but it's not up to him or the blogosphere whether his opponents, Democrats, Republicans, or anything else, keep ragging on this issue," Ms. Darr, the director of a center on the Internet and politics at George Washington University, said. "With Edwards in particular, it remains to be seen how he squares this circle with the blue-collar constituency, with the Hispanic constituency, with the church-going constituency. I don't think he's seen the end of this."

Ms. Darr also said the battle over the bloggers left the impression that it was more tolerable to disparage Catholics than other religious groups. "You'd be hard-pressed to say anything more inflammatory," she said, and added that similar comments about Judaism or Islam would have produced "a very different outcome." A political consultant credited with harnessing the Internet for Howard Dean's presidential campaign in 2004, Joseph Trippi, praised Mr. Edwards. "He made the right decision not to fire them. That will hold him in really good stead with a lot of people who understand how the blogosphere works," Mr. Trippi said. "This probably turns out to be a net plus for him."

Mr. Trippi said it was unfair to hold Mr. Edwards responsible for comments junior staffers made before being hired. "The blogosphere is about saying it raw, saying it the way you want," he said, adding, "I'm not condoning anything anybody said."

A Democratic consultant who has clashed with liberal bloggers, Daniel Gerstein, said the online activists had successfully browbeaten Mr. Edwards. "This is the latest blogosphere episode of ‘Fear Factor,'" he said. "They're good at making threats."

Mr. Gerstein, who is not related to this reporter, said the episode made left-leaning bloggers look hypocritical. "These guys call out bigotry and jump up and down about it when it's practiced on the right, but when it's practiced on the left, they shriek, ‘Free speech!' At the end of the day, if you want to be taken seriously, there has to be some accountability."

Several operatives said the brouhaha would lead to greater vetting of Internet-related hires. "It's a warning sign of the dangers of forming formal associations with people who have not been subject to the kind of scrutiny that most people working in national politics typically get," Mr. Gerstein said.