An honest, political, soul-searching atheist

Now this is the kind of frankness we need in and around political campaigns.

I am an atheist, but when Bill Donohue called the John Edwards bloggers “anti-Catholic, vulgar, trash-talking bigots,” my first thought was, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

I was offered a job blogging for John Edwards, but I declined.

Lindsay Beyerstein pours out quite a long and revealing story here about the inside management of the Edwards campaign, which is really about most of the campaigns right now. No matter what her politics, I admire the honesty and integrity she brought to the discussion over the importance of words and communication with the public. She recounts the discussion with Edwards staffer “Bob” about the enthusiastic new way they were building the campaign.

Bob was telling me how John Edwards was going to be a different kind of candidate. We, a new generation of Internet-savvy activists, had finally come of age. We were going to help Edwards run a campaign that was totally outside the Beltway.

I nodded. The glow of the ceremony was still with me. Anything seemed possible.

As we walked, Bob downloaded his vision: The whole Edwards campaign was going to be a decentralized grass-roots operation.

That sounds great, but no longer original. This seems to be the MO this time around for the presidential candidates. Use the Internet, and particularly the bloggers.

After this heartfelt pitch, Bob asked me if I was interested in blogging for the Edwards campaign.

I was dazzled by Edwards’ speech, Bob’s vision and the sense that I might be on the verge of the big time. I wanted to jump on the bus, but I knew I couldn’t.

I’m impressed by her introspection.

“I’m probably not … the person you want,” I said, finally. “I mean, I’m on the record saying that abortion is good and that all drugs should be legalized, including heroin. Don’t you think that might be a little embarrassing for the campaign?”

Bob assured me that my controversial posts weren’t a problem as far as the campaign was concerned. They were familiar with my work…

“That’s you, that’s not John Edwards,” he said.

Bob was confident that people would understand the difference. I wasn’t so sure.

“So, it’s not a problem that I’m an outspoken atheist?” I asked.

Every blogger says controversial things from time to time, Bob assured me. He admitted that he’d drawn some fire for a tasteless joke on his own site a while back. It hadn’t been a big deal.

I am convinced that it would have been a big deal if this were a conservative candidate. A tasteless joke takes on a long life in the media when it’s tossed out there by a conservative, though that — come on, frankly now — happens far less often than by a liberal.

I asked if I would have to quit blogging…After three years of hard work, I finally have a platform from which to express ideas that won’t get a hearing in the established media, let alone in mainstream Democratic politics. So the prospect of giving up my untrammeled freedom to blog press releases for John Edwards gave me pause. Still, I assumed Bob would say it was a necessity.

I was wrong. Bob promised that I wouldn’t have to give up my personal blog. He added that I probably wouldn’t have much time left for personal blogging, since everyone was working 18-hour days on the campaign. But, he noted, he hadn’t given up his own blog, and neither had another member of the Edwards Internet team.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. A bunch of Internet staffers with private blogs sounded like a disaster waiting to happen.

It did. But in the aftermath, two bloggers finally left, and it’s all but forgotten by the mainstream media.

But this column by Beyerstein brings an interesting light to the sometimes nasty worlds of politics and the blogosphere. It’s the light of soul-searching, the will to be honest in expressing opinions, and then to be accountable for those expressions.

I knew that if I was blogging for Edwards, anything I said on (her blog) Majikthise would be a potential liability for the candidate, even if I wasn’t talking about politics.

And aside from the risks to the campaign, I wasn’t sure this arrangement would be healthy for my blog. With this responsibility weighing on my mind, how could I continue to deliver the independent perspective that my readers value? If I were suddenly on a candidate’s payroll, yet still posting my own “independent” thoughts on Majikthise, what would my longtime readers think? Would they still trust me? Should they? Full disclosure wasn’t going to solve the problem of divided loyalties…

I tried to explain this as delicately and clearly as I could: A-list polemicists are popular because they say things you don’t hear on television. The blogosphere isn’t just “The Situation Room” with swear words, it’s a space for writers to explore ideas that are outside the bounds of mainstream discourse.

If you hire these larger-than-life personalities to blog for John Edwards, they’ll have to stop espousing many of the radical policy positions and unconventional values that made them popular in the first place.

Fans will also know when a John Edwards message conflicts with the bloggers’ own record on an issue. Big-name bloggers hired by campaigns will be accused of “selling out” and open themselves up to accusations of hypocrisy from both sides.

I’m for mainstream, civil discourse, and don’t think polemics and swear words help anybody or their cause. But it’s interesting how closely someone who inhabits that world agrees with…maybe not my values…but the Forum’s goal of intellectual honesty. The arena of ideas requires it, especially the political one. Let the people make a real informed choice.