The Edwards campaign fires anti-Catholic bloggers

The Edwards campaign, under pressure from the right, fired two bloggers who previously had published obnoxious and ill-informed posts about the Roman Catholic church. I applaud the move. This country has a long history of anti-Catholic bigotry -- the Know-Nothing Party is still, in a sense, the majority party.

The two bloggers were Amanda Marcotte of the Pandagon blog site and Melissa McEwan, whose blog is named -- ironically enough -- Shakespeare’s Sister. I say "ironic" because the evidence is persuasive (though not conclusive) that Shakespeare came from a Catholic family, and had to hide his faith because he lived in a day and place when Catholics who did not abjure their beliefs could be murdered with impunity.

Alas, quite a few fans of the film V for Vendetta have no idea as to the cause which motivated Guy Fawkes. Had the film-makers mentioned that little historical nugget, box-office might have suffered.

Please understand that I myself have no religious affiliation; as I've said before, I seem permanently mired in the realm between Gnosticism and agnosticism. My sympathies will always be with the Gandalf-like Cathar parfaits, not with the Inquisitors who burned them.

But my people were Italian. Family history is a living memory. Prejudice did not make life easier for my great-Grandfather when he came to this country.

You judge a tree by its fruits, as a wise Jewish fella once said. The faith of my forebears -- for all its many failings and stupidities -- gave the world Bernini and Bruckner. And what has Americano Southern Baptist Babbitry given the world? Precious Moments and the Grand Ol' Opry. The current Pope has done nothing to make me admire him -- but that doesn't change the fact that, in Catholicism, a strong intellectual tradition continually wrestles with the forces of reaction. In the land of LaHaye and Falwell, it's all anti-intellectualism, all the time.

Can you name a Southern Baptist equivalent to Meister Eckhart or Teilhard de Chardin? I'll give you five minutes. Let's be generous: Ten.

Again: You judge a tree by its fruits.

It's pretty clear from this ABC News piece that Amanda Marcotte uses anti-Catholicism as a scapegoat for what bothers her about American Protestant fundamentalism. This is a phenomenon I've noticed for years: When Americans get pissed off at Pat Robertson, they take a swing at the Pope -- sort of like going after Saddam after you've been attacked by Osama. Some Americans also use anti-Catholicism as an acceptable variant of anti-Semitism: Those who cannot confess out loud that Jews annoy them relieve their tensions by tossing dreck in the general direction of the Vatican. For those raised within the American Protestant tradition, even for those infuriated by that tradition, the enemy must always be The Other, the Eternal Outsiders -- i.e., those damn Eye-Talyans, Frogs, Micks, Spicks and Polacks.

Indeed, I suspect that The DaVinci Code owes much of its American popularity to this psychological displacement phenomenon. Those with legitimate doubts about the "verities" of Christian origins prefer to blame that other church overseas -- which they foolishly see as monolithic and powerful -- not the home-grown faith -- which, in actual practice, is far, far more powerful, and wears a much tighter straitjacket of the mind.

Here are some facts, Amanda: The Church, for all its sins, did not support the Iraq war, does not condone Israel's abuses, does not support the death penalty, and does not favor dog-eat-dog capitalism as the only permissible economic system. Those are all Southern Baptist "thangs," and if they make you mad (as they ought), I'll thank you very much to direct your venom toward the crimson-necked primates inhabiting the Sahara of the Bozart. They are the ones singing It's G-L-O-R-Y to be S-A-V-E-D; Catholicism recognizes Presumption as a sin. They are the ones who pray to Ares under the name of Jesus, and thus revere gunfire as a sacrament. Catholics pray to Isis under the name of Mary -- and everyone knows that Mom doesn't want to send her boys off to war unless absolutely necessary.

Readers may legitimately call me a hypocrite. Are not my daily writings every bit as "edgy," opinionated and offensive as those produced by Marcotte and McEwan? You bet! For example, I've made no secret of my feelings toward American southerners. My Jewish friends don't consider me an anti-Semite, but some Jews must surely despise what I've written about Israel.

Here's the difference: I would never work for any candidate's campaign.

You see, in spite of everything written above, I applaud Marcotte and McEwan for speaking their minds on their blogs. They have a right to their views -- a right to be wrong. I exercise the same right rather too often.

But bloggers must realize: They -- we -- will always stand outside the campaign process. The moment we set up a place of online business and start serving up hot words, we forevermore give up our right to be players. Our proper place is in the observation booth.

That assessment may seem harsh. It is harsh. Much talent must go under-utilized. Everyone suspects that Josh Marshall hopes, one day, to be the West Wing's Josh Liman, and I think he'd do damn well in a job like that. But Marshall can never hold such a position.

Anything you write can and will be used against you. That is Fact One of Blogworld. Any blogger worth reading will piss people off. That is Fact Two. We must therefore confine ourselves to those realms where Fact One and Fact Two do not matter. We must find ways to do our thing without doing harm to candidates and causes we favor.

One final question: While Edwards was correct to dissociate his campaign from Marcotte and McEwen, why did the Republicans get a free pass when they invited the psychotically anti-Catholic Tim LaHaye to address one of their conventions? (That happened in 1980 or 1984 -- I cannot recall which year offhand, but I know it happened.)