All the recent hoopla over the Edwards Campaign bloggers caught my eye and added a couple new blogs (like this one and this one) to my favorites folder. I haven't had the time to keep up with everything surrounding this issue, but imagine my surprise when I checked out one of my new favorites this morning and saw this.
While Marcotte's decision to resign is understandable, the acceptance of her resignation, and the silence about it at the Edwards site, is not.
Clearly Edwards, or someone on his staff, was aware enough of Marcotte's work at Pandagon to want to hire her, which means they were [should have been] aware of the nature of her work at that site. If, as a campaign, Edwards and company cannot vet their employees better than that, they do not deserve my vote. If, as a campaign, they do not have the guts to do more than issue mealy mouthed comments about their employees while waiting for the right time to let them quietly step down, they certainly do not deserve my vote. And now they've done it again, Melissa McEwan, who had also been targeted for views posted on her blog before joining the campaign, has also stepped down; and, again there is no comment from the Edwards campaign.
Okay, I didn't start this post to complain about Edwards' cowardice. There are larger issues here that need to be considered. In comments responding to Marcotte's announcement Michael Bérubé points out that we are in new political territory. His comment is worth reading in full.
Clearly, blogging involves a very different kind of
rhetorical compact with one’s readers than campaigning does. But not until last
week, so far as I know, has there ever been a demand in this country that
ordinary campaign staffers account to the candidate — and to the general public
— for everything they’ve written prior to becoming campaign staffers. If you
sincerely think that the fault lies with Amanda for not alerting the Edwards
camp to the full metal Pandagon archives, well, I think you’re being
played.
Hiring campaign bloggers is a new phenomenon. The tension created as we attempt to identify and define this new rhetorical space needs to be carefully analyzed. When bloggers choose to write, in their own spaces, about sensitive issues they blur the lines between public and private discourse on those subjects. Certainly weblogs are a form of public discourse. Unless I choose to hide an entry, I understand that once I hit the “publish” button I’m no longer in control of my rhetorical audience. Consequently, as I write I should probably construct my audience as broadly as possible, being careful and deliberate in my word choice. However, the “log” nature of this format lends itself to feeling like a private discourse, which allows for an individualist voice. My private views, expressed in my own voice, become a part of public discourse in a way that has different ramifications from speaking loudly in the local coffee shop.
Unfortunately, I’m not being as articulate as I’d like here, and I don’t have the time to really work through this right now. What I’m trying to get at is a question about how our “published” words get used in these situations. Underlying this whole situation is, I think, a rhetorical (and ethical?) issue about how personal blogs are used (for political means) within public discourse.
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