Farewell, Amanda

Actually, "Farewell Amanda" is a lovely song by Cole Porter. But it also summarizes the news about Edwards blogger Amanda Marcotte, who "resigned" from the Edwards campaign. Given the continuing coverage of the story, it seemed almost inevitable that a "resignation" would come -- just to stop the bleeding.

This has been a bad and ugly deal for John Edwards. In many ways, he's positioned to emerge as a viable alternative if Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton hack each other into tiny pieces, figuratively speaking. He's in a strong position in Iowa. But all in one sordid episode, he's managed to annoy both people of faith and the leftist nutroots, and raise questions about his own judgment and readiness to lead..

Normal people who read the angry, anti-religious screeds of Miss Marcotte are left with two dubious alternatives when it comes to her hiring by the Edwards campaign: Did someone on the campaign look at her work and decide it was just fine -- or did the campaign hire a blogger without even looking at her previous work?