So am I to take it that you applaud the Edwards campaign for hiring the bloggers in the first place?
I thought it was really quite gutsy of them, but in retrospect I think they didn't know what they were doing. My guess is if they had really paid attention [to what Marcotte and McEwan had written before being hired] they probably wouldn't have hired these women, and so somehow they slipped through the cracks. Another way to look at how that happened is from the perspective of a certain charming naiveté: [the Edwards' campaign's] generalized acceptance of the nature of the blogosphere and understanding the importance of being out there and provocative, even though Edwards or his people may not have understood the extent to which they were provocative in some areas. But still, the openness to that was ... delightful.
The other thing is that hiring two feminists demonstrates the perspective of the campaign that it is important to be there and their intentions in that area -- not just with women but with feminists. And Edwards is to be congratulated for that; it's one thing to be associated with women, it's another to be associated with feminists. There's some ballsiness there. And that's good.
The most recent stir -- after last week's dust-up, firing-rehiring debacle -- was over the sentence, "The Christian version of the virgin birth is generally interpreted as super-patriarchal, where god is viewed as so powerful he can impregnate without befouling himself by touching a woman, and women are nothing but vessels." What is your reaction to that passage?
I don't find anything provocative about it. There's no gross language in there. And you could read a hundred scholarly articles on virginity, sexuality, women, from Christian theologians that would say similar things.
And I didn't think there was anything more radical in there than the ideas that were the basis for "The Da Vinci Code."
Well, Donohue didn't like "The Da Vinci Code," either.
But what Amanda wrote is certainly no different from what prominent Ph.D.s, tenured professors of theology, are saying when they're talking about sex and Christianity. But this is it, Donohue doesn't like serious scholarly examination of Christian principles, or stories, or myths any more than he likes satire of it. He is an equal-opportunity bully when it comes to those things. It's a basic belief, whether it's about this or the Danish cartoons, put forward by some in the religious community, which says that what we believe is off-limits; it cannot be criticized because we have said it is sacred. And then there are the rest of us in democratic societies who say nothing is above criticism and that democracy even includes the right to ridicule.
Do you think that this blogger controversy will have a net negative impact?
Well, the unfortunate thing is the resignation. That's the most unfortunate aspect because it only emboldens him. Because Donohue won. And that makes me furious.
It's also like Mara Vanderslice; she worked for the Kerry campaign as his religious outreach person and Donohue discovered that she had once been in a demonstration with [AIDS activist group] Act Up, and he then went after her, with exactly the same kind of language: "I'm going to get her fired," etc. She didn't lose her job and didn't get fired, but she was totally isolated within the campaign; she couldn't make public statements or be used well anymore. And he writes about how "I got her."
There is something about this man and his attacks on women that is frightening. There was a while when I refused to go on air with him [for television appearances] because -- you know I am a very strong person -- but I felt physically threatened by this man. He never physically threatened me, but I felt like I was in the presence of an abuser. So for a long time I just refused because it was too degrading to be in his presence. I got over it eventually and have done a few things with him since. I understand that he is so offensive that he does himself damage; as long as I can maintain my equilibrium with him attacking me in the most vicious ways possible -- that only does me credit and makes him look like the abuser that he is. But the glee with which he went after Vanderslice and the glee with which he has gone after these women marks him as an abuser.
About the writer
Rebecca Traister is a staff writer for Salon Life.
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