Of course I remember her...

Remember John Edward's former campaign blogger, Amanda Marcott, who wrote all sorts of nastiness about Catholicism and the Pope—and still kept her job? She did resign shortly thereafter, leaving her free to spew more ugliness, including this about the death of Jerry Falwell (ht: Karnick on Culture):

The gates of hell swing open and Satan welcomes his beloved son.

Jerry Falwell’s dead.

Guess god liked the ACLU better after all.

Newsbusters.org has much more, along the same infantile, demented lines. James Taranto of Opinion Journal's "Best of the Web Today" has rounded up more (scroll down a bit), including:

• "tzs," on Marcotte's blog: "If Mr. Falwell had not used his life to spew hatred at anyone who did not fit his narrow-minded, bigoted idea of who was a True God-fearing American™, one might feel more willing to refrain from stating what an absolutely putrid little excrescence of vomit he was. But I'm being polite, so I won't say that. R.I.P., and after watching Falwell I know know why the Romans threw the Christians to the lions."

•  "Blue_In_AK" on DemocraticUnderground.com: "he was such an unctuous, smug, obnoxious blowhard that it's really difficult not to celebrate his death. I'm trying, but it's .... so .... HARD."

• "andyesmysoulwillrotinhell," on TMZ.com: "First class a--h---..now worm food...the world finally makes sense."

• "roewert," on WashingtonPost.com: "Good ridence. Jerry al Falwell was imbicile who thought that the whole world should think and believe just like him. Too bad there were so many gullible people in this country who fell for his nonsense and sent so much money to him. So does this mean that Pat bin Robertson moves up to the slot of chief idiot? The Christian taliban marches on...."

Fortunately for these folks, Al Gore's soon-to-be released book, The Assault On Reason, was apparently written with them in mind:

A visionary analysis of how the politics of fear, secrecy, cronyism, and blind faith has combined with the degration of the public sphere to create an environment dangerously hostile to reason. ... Gore's larger goal in this book is to explain how the public sphere itself has evolved into a place hospitable to reason's enemies, to make us more aware of the forces at work on our own minds, and to lead us to an understanding of what we can do, individually and collectively, to restore the rule of reason and safeguard our future. Drawing on a life's work in politics as well as on the work of experts across a broad range of disciplines, Al Gore has written a farsighted and powerful manifesto for clear thinking.

Thank goodness! I just hope those folks read it before the world melts.

Comments

[Ed Peters]

Infantile is right. Why does the screechy left so often end up sounding like sophomores in high school, landing their first journalism job at student paper named "The Bugle" or something? You know who does this more and more lately? The Nation. What a bunch of babies they've become.

My theory: the rising generation of writers was not, unlike mine and my father's, first a generation of readers in their youth. They just weren't formed by uncountable pages of prose before they got the charge of seeing their name published in some desktop (basically) self-publishing mode.

[dan sheehan]

Ed, you are awfully generous in calling them "writers." When we first encountered Amanda Marcotte during the Edwards campaign controversy, it struck me as extraordinary that someone with such primitive writing and debating skills had managed to attach herself to a presidential campaign.
You're absolutely right that it's a generational thing. They have never been properly formed.

[A Simple Sinner]

Can we take back the word "spew"?

"I am tired of anti-Catholics spewing their hatred of our faith - which must in fact, also fall upon the faithful."

"If only they would stop spewing elitist diatribes"

On second thought, its an ugly word - let them spew it all they want.

[Rick]

Okay, I have to post this, call it a lack of temperance! I noticed that Al Gore has now chosen to move his talents into writing a book on reason. Sorry, but to me this is like Jerry Garcia choosing to write a book on men's fashion!

[Ed Peters]

Al Gore, a book on reason, LOL LOL LOL. No, wait, I know, it's gonna be one of those gag books, you know, 150 completely blank pages. What a scream!

[TDD]

I wonder if Ms. Marcotte realizes how close her remarks are to the Westboro Baptist Church's regarding his death.

Anyone interested should know their infamous URL by now.

[MMajor Fan]

I don't listen to or read propaganda that's just meant to offend. In the minute I might spend reading stuff like that, which just rolls off my back anyway, I could instead be reading something more useful, like what Paris Hilton is doing, whether the dog on Frasier used dental floss, and how they are progressing in building robots for picking our crops in California.