On the February 8 edition of Fox News Live, Mike Allen, chief political correspondent for The Politico, described the controversy surrounding two bloggers on the presidential campaign staff of former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) as “revenge of the right-wing bloggers,” adding: “Don't we normally hear about the left-wing bloggers and them going after people?” Allen was referring to right-wing bloggers such as Michelle Malkin, who first highlighted what she called the “foul-mouthed nutroots diatribes” of the Edwards campaign bloggers -- Pandagon's Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan of Shakespeare's Sister.

As Media Matters for America noted, Malkin herself has been chastised for extreme, hate-filled writing. In 2004, the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot dropped Malkin's syndicated column, describing her writing as “seemingly mean-spirited rantings.” A Virginian-Pilot columnist wrote that Malkin “habitually mistakes shrill for thought-provoking and substitutes screaming for discussion,” that she represents “the worst of what's wrong with punditry today,” and that she “adds absolutely nothing to genuine political discourse.” Malkin has a history of launching ad hominem attacks on Democrats, such as her utterly baseless allegation on the August 19, 2004, edition of MSNBC's Hardball that one of Sen. John Kerry's (D-MA) war injuries might have been an intentionally “self-inflicted” wound.

As Media Matters documented, on February 7, The New York Times and the Associated Press reported criticism by Catholic League president Bill Donohue that Marcotte and McEwan are “anti-Catholic, vulgar, trash-talking bigots,” without noting Donohue's own history of vulgar, trash-talking bigotry -- or of Donohue's decision to dismiss anti-Catholic bigotry on the part of Jerome Corsi, a key anti-Kerry operative in 2004. Media Matters has also noted that the media largely ignored the controversy behind McCain's hiring of Hynes, who failed to disclose his employment with McCain's campaign even though he posted several blog entries praising McCain as a presidential candidate and attacking McCain's rivals.

From the 9 a.m. ET hour of the February 8 edition of Fox News Live, anchored by Jon Scott:

ALLEN: With Senator Edwards' situation, that's interesting because this is the revenge of the right-wing bloggers, right, Jon? Don't we normally hear about the left-wing bloggers and them going after people? Here, it was Christian bloggers, or conservative bloggers, who pulled out past postings by a couple of bloggers that were hired by the Edwards campaign. Some of them were -- that were taken as anti-Catholic, anti-religion, and obviously that's not something Senator Edwards wants to do. He believes he's a Democrat who can win in Red States.