If anything disqualifies John "The Hair" Edwards from the presidency of the local Kiwanis club -- let alone the United States -- it's his decision this week to keep on bloggers Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan.

Everyone political watcher initially thought that the initial selection of Marcotte and McEwan to run Edwards' blog was evidence of nothing more than poor hiring practices and a failure to do due diligence. But Edwards proved us all wrong when he doubled down on stupid.

I've talked to Amanda and Melissa; they have both assured me that it was never their intention to malign anyone's faith, and I take them at their word.

If Edwards has read what those two have written and actually believes that, then he is utterly unqualified to run U.S. foreign policy. Heck, if he truly believes that no one should let him within 100 yards of any con man.

Edwards has decided that to win he needs to embrace the most intolerant, hateful parts of the left at the expense of the rest of the Democrat Party, let alone all of the swing votes in the middle of the political spectrum. The religious left isn't happy about this.

As the flap over alleged anti-Catholic writings by two John Edwards campaign bloggers devolves into a shouting match between conservative religious voices and liberal bloggers, some members of the "religious left" say they feel – again – shoved to the margins of the Democratic Party.

"We're completely invisible to this debate," said Eduardo Penalver, a Cornell University law professor who writes for the liberal Catholic journal Commonweal. He said he was dissatisfied with the Edwards campaign's response. "As a constituency, the Christian left isn't taken all that seriously," Penalver said.

Democrats -- and Edwards in particular -- have embraced the language of faith and the imperative of competing with Republicans for the support of religious voters. His wife, Elizabeth Edwards, even sits on the board of the leading organization of the religious left, Call to Renewal. But in private conversations and careful public statements today, religious Democrats said they felt sidelined by Edwards' decision to stand by his aides.

"We have gone so far to rebuild that coalition [between Democrats and religious Christians] and something like this sets it back," said Brian O'Dwyer, a New York lawyer and Irish-American leader who chairs the National Democratic Ethnic Leadership Council, a Democratic Party group. O'Dwyer said Edwards should have fired the bloggers. "It's not only wrong morally – it's stupid politically."

If this were just about anyone but Edwards, I'd say the campaign was over before it had really begun. But Edwards has a large personal fortune and it appears he's willing to throw quite a bit of it down a rathole.

I try to keep this blog to a pretty strict PG rating, but if you want a glimpse of what Edwards believes is not an intentional maligning of anyone's faith, you can find it after the jump.

This slander was aimed primarily at Catholics, but manages to hit all Christians equally.

From Marcotte:

Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit?

A: You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology.

McEwan likes to call conservative Christians "christofascists" and has quite a potty mouth -- not uncommon for most of the blogosphere's left.

For some more commentary, you can go here.