Or, if you prefer, one down:

Amanda Marcotte posted on her personal blog, Pandagon, that the criticism “was creating a situation where I felt that every time I coughed, I was risking the Edwards campaign.”
Marcotte said she resigned from her position Monday, and that her resignation was accepted by the campaign.

Kate Bedingfield, a spokeswoman for the Edwards campaign, confirmed that Marcotte was “no longer working for the campaign.” She declined additional comment.

… and — maybe — one to go:

Melissa McEwan remains on the Edwards campaign staff. She did not return messages left Monday.

The Left reacted vociferously to the report the bloggers had been fired. Then Edwards appeared to stand by the duo, and the Left was mollified. How will they feel about being whipsawed?

Over at MyDD, a post by Matt Stoller claims Marcotte simply up and quit. I take it he’s trying to save Edwards, because he writes, “Bill Donohue’s attack on Edwards failed.” (Aren’t these DD bloggers supposed to be brutally honest, call-it-like-it-is types?)

However, commenter “Dave1021” states the obvious:

How exactly do you figure Donohue’s attack “failed”? How long before Melissa “decides” to resign?

Edwards knuckled under, and if the blogosphere is just going to pretend he didn’t, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in.

Some of the other commenters fell in with Stoller, so maybe they’d like a share in the bridge too.

Over at Kos, “Mikey” can’t – or won’t – figure this one out. So he throws up a multiple choice of possible explanations, including one that’s just “???.” I had to scroll a long way to find commenter “corndog,” who gently suggested:

i don’t know her either. BUT, when was the last time some one high profile got “fired?” i can’t think of a single one. even criminals get to resign.

here’s another reason: when was the last time you or anyone searched their conscious and decided to quit a really sweet job?

Anyway, if what Mikey is serving is good enough for Kos readers then WTF.

The rest of the big lefty bloggers haven’t weighed in yet — I’ll update when they do, simply because I’m curious whether they’ll fess up even if it hurts Edwards.

I expect Marcotte will get a sweet gig out of this elsewhere, to keep her from turning her guns on the Edwards campaign and to console others that a member of their tribe got tangible rewards.

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EXTRA:

Here’s a suggestion Edwards has been flailing:

The result has been a campaign that has been off-message since its inception. And this has begun to affect the campaign in the polls. An early January Rasmussen Reports poll had Edwards winning 15% of Democratic primary voters to Clinton’s 22% and Obama’s 21%. By the end of the month he was down to 10%, while Clinton had surged to 34% (Obama was at 18%). The results in key primary states mirror this movement. A mid-January Zogby poll showed Edwards leading Clinton by nine points; by mid-February the two were tied (Obama had not moved). In New Hampshire, Zogby polls of the same dates show a six-point decline in Edwards’s support, while Clinton has been surging (Obama again has not moved). This is not the type of movement Edwards wanted to see.

He’ll be offloading negatives as fast as he can.

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