Who says the blogosophere doesn’t matter?
The president of the NDP, Anne McGrath, wrote a letter today to the president of the Canadian Jewish Congress in which the NDP disavowed any connection to blogger Robert McClelland, a frequent commenter at this blog and one of the organizers of the Blogging Dippers.
At his blog, McClelland had posted an excerpt of a comment by the Rev. Ted Pike. Pike is the director of the Oregon-based Christian evangelical group National Prayer Network and describes himself at that organization’s Web site as “ an outspoken critic of [the Anti-Defamation League’]s evil Jewish leadership.” The excerpt, posted at the end of last week, carried the title “Religious Reich Whingers” and was published without comment from McClelland.
But then, on Sunday afternoon, in the comments to that post, McClelland said he would not not even “muster up a ‘what a shame’” if Jews were persecuted by the state.
This is the comment that sparked McGrath to write her letter; sparked McClelland’s co-blogger to quit the partnership; and sparked Stephane Dion’s chief blogger to accuse McClelland of spewing hatred online (and call for his resignation as head of the Blogging Dippers). Lefty blogger Jean-Francois of Sackville, NB calls on other bloggers who back the NDP to come up with a joint statement about McClelland. The Progressive Bloggers collective wasted little time in voting McClelland off their island. To which McClelland says … well, check it out [see the comments section here] for yourself.