"...to imply a human bond that isn't there"

As you've heard by now, John Edwards's Jack-Chicks have "resigned." Though the Left is maintaining the script whereby the two are martyrs to Vatican power and the patriarchy, and to Edwards's failure to maintain a "bar-fight" position in the culture wars, I actually think Edwards is worse off for having backtracked on his initial decision to keep them on -- asssuming that their quitting really was his decision, not theirs.

As for the Jack-Chicks themselves, they'll be fine. One of them is at this moment one of Technorati's top searches; they're heroes to their highly-motivated base; advancealicious book deals and a TV miniseries can't be far off. But as for the impact on the Edwards campaign, Capt. Ed remarks:

I'm actually surprised that she quit, and at this point rather than last week when it might have meant something.... It seemed unlikely that anyone would find more insulting language on Marcotte's blog than already produced, and the decision by John Edwards appeared to tamp down the topic.....

Instead, as a number of bloggers have noted, Marcotte decided to take the opportunity to play the victim. Contrary to her assertion that we "right wing shills don’t respect that a mere woman like me could be hired for my skills," we Catholics drew attention to the fact that she engages in vituperative and demeaning attacks on religion and that Edwards appeared to have endorsed that by hiring her. Along the exact same lines, I would have criticized a Republican dumb enough to hire Fred Phelps as a spokesperson, as would Marcotte herself. She simply refuses to accept the fact that she wrote incendiary and bigoted essays about Christians and embarrassed Edwards by agreeing to work for him after doing so.

Narcissism is a theme that several have picked up on. Tim, of Random Observations, writes:

Commenter after commenter talks about "phony outrage" and "right wing noise", "hype and smear", "baseless" complaints, etc, etc, etc.

...Such remarks strike me, as an outsider, as incredibly stupid: Yes, the "right wing" was desparate to get some random John Edwards-employed blogger, Marcotte, fired. Because, among all the other bloggers who support Democratic candidates, she's -- what, so amazingly good? Why pick on her in particular? And (of course) John Edwards is such a substantial threat to, say, Guiliani, that it's clear they'd certainly go after him first.....

But as I said: this isn't stupidity, and these are (otherwise) sharp people. This is narcissism: it's all a big plot to get Marcotte. It has nothing to do with her sexual comments about God. That's just a superficial excuse to get at her -- because she's "pro-choice" and "not religious", as she explained.

Something that still needs saying is that the word "bigotry," as used in this flap, while perhaps lexicographically accurate, somehow doesn't capture the essence of the thing.

The Jack-Chicks are certainly bigoted in the sense that they have very strong opinions against viewpoints that they have, from all that appears, not made a serious effort to understand. (Chris, of Work in Progress, while noting -- rightly, imo -- that "politeness is only worth so much, especially politeness to people who aren't in the room" -- takes the trouble in this post to respond in a reasonable fashion to the rantings that Catholics are calling bigoted and that the AP referred to only as "deemed anti-Catholic" by Bill Donohue.)

But we usually reserve "bigot" for people who misunderstand and hate persons, not for people who misunderstand and hate teachings. When the latter are involved, and the teachings are those of the Church, "bigot" sounds at once too harsh and too soft. Uncle Di grasps a strand of the thread when he writes:

A man's feelings are hurt not by injury simply, but by injury where good will is expected. Five minutes' browsing on the damsels' blogs suffices to show there's no good will to abuse. And, paradoxically, when one belligerent openly declares war on another, it can thereafter hurt everything pertaining to its enemy except its feelings. Marcotte and McEwan may be "offensive" in the military sense of aggressive, but for Catholics to complain of being offended by their antipathy is to imply a human bond that isn't there.

I gather Bill Donohue believes that Catholics must not be left out of the Victim Game, since that's the coin of the realm, and the Church must not be, or be seen as, the only institution in American life that you can still attack. Fair enough. But now, the Chicks have taken Victim Hill in this round, and Bill (to mix game metaphors many times over) has been caught with the black hat on when the music stopped.

I'm happy with a rule that says "The Catholic Church will get at least as much respect as any other identifiable group in American interest-group, grievance-driven politics." But I'm not so happy with a rule that says "No one whose writings are vulnerable to attack by any grievance group can take any further part in public life." Does this make any sense?

Further blogcredit must go to eagle-eyed Walter Olson, who early on spotted Ms. Marcotte's unhingedness on a different issue -- the Duke lacrosse case -- and posted about it here.

Want to check out what the nutroots Left is saying? Try this, or this ("My stomach clenches when I think of Amanda, bursting with young, sparkling genius... jumped in the club car by vulgar hate-filled minions of the vile godbag Donohue turd..."; the writer envisions a better world in which "enlightened genderless aliens arrive in their organic mothership and aim a Lobotomy Beam at the brains of all woman-hating, dead- ghost- from- the- Roman- Empire- worshiping assholes"). And don't miss out on the comments.