I haven't written about the big dust-up in the blogosphere today. Frankly I thought the story so ridiculous that John Edwards would swat it away like an annoying fly. Alas, he hasn't which has now made it an story.

If you're unaware, John Edwards hired a couple of bloggers as consultants for his campaign. A bunch of the right nutbars are shocked SHOCKED that these bloggers have expressed controversial opinions and used profane language in the past!

If you want more detail, go here, here, here, and the best one here. All the details are in the links with a full panoply of the thick hypocrisy involved by the nutbars. The Edwards campaign has created a problem by responding to the whole thing by basically saying, "we're reviewing the situation", giving credence to the seriousness of these unserious charges.

There are rumors that Edwards has fired the bloggers. I hope not. Edwards should have called bullshit bullshit right from the get with this whole controversy. The fact it's been handled so poorly makes me wonder about handling a full-on nutbar attack which would be inevitable in any campaign.

As Digby also points out, the media again in the form of the NY Times drank the nutbar kool-aid all the way down, providing no context, contrasts or background research in their treatment of the story. Conservatives must kill themselves laughing everytime the lazy Times reporters steno their talking points this way. If you want to let John Broder, reporter on the story, know how you feel about it, he can be emailed here. Just be sure to be nice or Mr. Broder may need to have Maureen Dowd escort him to the fainting couch .....