John Edwards Is A Big, Stinking Idiot Of A Presidential Candidate

...whom I have complete and utter respect for after reading that after 36 hours of deliberation, Edwards allowed "two liberal, feminist with long cybertrails of incendiary comments on sex, religion and politics" to stay on his campaign staff.

Most political junkies would agree that this news isn't exactly positive for Edwards - although it makes me believe in his person just a little bit more.

Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, keep on keeping on. Because what's really important is that Edwards, whether he knows it or not, is now a test-tube case for hiring campaign bloggers that aren't merely extensions of one's own ideology.

There is clearly a small rift between Edwards' populism and his bloggers' (past) liberal vitriol. But the test for the candidate is 1) how well he can do as a candidate and 2) how well he can keep his bloggers "under control" without appearing as if he's censoring them. If he succeeds, he'll be regarded as the next step in the Howard Dean phenomenon. If he fails, he'll be the cited example for why bloggers are reckless, renegade talking heads who sleep on a copy of the First Amendment.

Should Edwards have checked their histories before hiring them? Absolutely. But he took a chance - in hiring them and in not checking, assuming he didn't - and his decision is commendable. His decision will set the tone for how bloggers integrate with campaigns, and what's more, who can feasibly be hired by which campaign.

Would Kos at DailyKos ever take a job for the RNC if he treated it as high-exposure blogging of someone else's ideology?

Probably not.

But this begs a new question - is it against the "blogger code of ethics," assuming there is some figment of one, to blog someone else's opinion?

No matter what, it's clear that the "netroots" baton has been passed from Howard Dean and Ned Lamont to John Edwards.

Run, John, run.