"I think this is the end of Edwards's campaign. He's through!"

So said Bill O'Reilly on his TV show last night, referring to the debacle over the two lefty bloggers the Edwards campaign hired, fired, and unfired. (One of the bloggers, Amanda Marcotte, has now resigned.)

O'Reilly put the focus on Edwards: he lacks the judgment to be President, he would allow "Christian-haters" to serve in his administration, etc. There were two guests on the show, one represented Democrats (and agreed that Edwards showed poor judgment) and the other was Michelle Malkin. Malkin was given one opportunity to speak and impressively nailed her position. Man, that was crisp! (Watch the video at the first link. It's a nice lesson in how to do TV.)

I particularly liked the way Malkin helped TV viewers understand the difficult relationship Democratic candidates have with the left blogosphere. The story must look quite weird to people who don't spend time reading blogs. For them, it might seem that Edwards made an odd mistake, followed by some strange indecision. The big picture is that the Democratic candidates have to interact with and please or at least appease the raging force that is the left blogosphere. No one has yet shown that they know how to do that well.

But some folks are learning faster than others. Look at this, from Kos, noting that a top adviser to an Edwards opponent told Slate's John Dickerson: "Apparently they're more afraid of the bloggers than they are the Catholics." Kos is desperate to find out which Democrat -- Dickerson confirms that it was a Democrat -- took that shot at the lefty bloggers:

[I]t's telling that whoever offered that blind quote to Slate was clearly more afraid of the bloggers than the Catholics that his or her campaign would supposedly win over by bashing Edwards....

[I]t's hypocritical to attack the Edwards campaign for "being afraid of bloggers" when this person was obviously too afraid of bloggers to put his or her name on the quote.

Ooh, everyone's afraid of the bloggers. I mean, the Democratic candidates are afraid of the lefty bloggers. I don't think the Republican candidates are afraid of the righty bloggers. Think that's a problem?

You can really tell that Kos wants the candidates to be afraid of him. It's an interesting dynamic. There's a real paradox to this lefty blogger power. They are so powerful that they are able to hurt the Democratic candidates in all sorts of strange new ways. Meanwhile, the non-lefty bloggers will amuse themselves watching and describing it all.

Who's the extra-quick learner out there? My guess: Hillary!