Salon has an iffy claim up that the John Edwards campaign has just fired their new bloggers, Amanda Marcotte, formerly of Pandagon, and Melissa McEwan, of Shakespeare’s Sister. Caution must be taken, since

Speculation from sources that the two bloggers might be rehired was bolstered by Jennifer Palmieri, a spokeswoman for the Edwards campaign, who said in an e-mail that she would “caution [Salon] against reporting that they have been fired. We will have something to say later.”

All of this comes after today’s New York Times piled on spreading the rightist swiftboat of the week, condemning the Edwards campaign because these two bloggers had written things on their own blogs which were profane (guilty as charged — but any leading righty site has as bad or worse), unfair to the Duke lacrosse players accused of rape (yes, Amanda did write as if they were guilty, just as most of the media did about O.J. — but that is hardly a usual concern of the righties, going back at least as far as Nixon denouncing Charles Manson as guilty), and, worst of all and the prime spark, anti-Catholic (this came from Bill Donohue, a proven hypocritical bigoted reactionary demagogue who himself openly disagrees with his church on many things such as the death penalty, but who hypocritically condemns any disagreement with the church from a liberal point of view as anti-Catholic hatred).

The campaign denouncing this has been all over the righty sites (no links — all the usual suspects were involved). If Edwards is caving in to their demands now, he doesn’t have the spine to stand up to them in the campaign or in the White House. This foolish spokesperson, saying earlier that they were considering those bloggers’ position, and now “cautioning” instead of just saying yes or no, thus leaving them dangling in the wind, is incompetent and should be fired instead. If the Edwards campaign is going to fight back, it will need a clear voice of moral certainty to say so. Palmieri isn’t that person.

The jury is still out. Edwards: flip-flopper, incompetent manager, or strong champion of free speech against bigotry? The web awaits.

UPDATE: Zuzu at Feminste has more, including videos of the bigoted Donohue, at This Is Really Getting Out Of Hand:

John Edwards, if you are at all serious about getting the votes of liberals, of women, of people who care passionately about the issues you talk about, then you can not cave to the likes of Bill Donohue.

Because there will be no end to the demands for capitulation. They won’t rest on their laurels after having taken out two relatively small fry. No, their demands will only increase, and there is no appeasing them.

And in the end, they’re not going to vote for you anyway. And the people who agree with them aren’t going to vote for you anyway.

The people you’ll lose, if you cave, are the people who hunger for someone who will stand the hell up to these kinds of loudmouthed, anti-Constitutional hacks who stand for nothing but their own selves.

UPDATE 2: This kind of wobbliness has even outraged good Dems in Texas, a state that has shown a lot of support for Edwards. Charles Kuffner, dean of Texas bloggers at Off the Kuff, writes in If you want me to vote for you, here’s what you’ve got to do:

If you want my vote, the bare minimum that I expect of you is that when a two-bit thug like Bill Donahue threatens you, you fight back instead of handing over your lunch money like a little weak-kneed fraidy cat. Anybody who tries to appease the likes of William Donahue instead of standing up for himself or herself is not going to be able to survive the general election, so I’ll be looking for someone else to represent the Democratic ticket. You would think that John Kerry’s running mate would understand that.