by hilzoy
I really hadn’t intended to write another post on puzzling things conservatives have recently said or done. However, the story of Ben Domenech (aka Augustine)’s apparent plagiarism made me change my mind. If you haven’t seen it yet, here are some of the examples:
* Via a dkos diary: Here’s a humor piece that Domenech published in his college paper. It’s lifted from PJ O’Rourke. Here’s a link I hope will work, to Amazon.com’s ‘Reader’; if that doesn’t work, use this, and click where it says ‘p. 176’. I won’t excerpt, since that would require typing the O’Rourke in, but trust me: this one just goes on and on and on.
* From another dkos diary: Compare Domenech’s review of “Bringing Out the Dead” to this one from Salon.com. The plagiarized part starts with the sentence “Frank Pierce (Nicolas Cage) is a New York City medic who’s haunted by the ghosts of the people he couldn’t save, particularly that of a young girl named Rose.” It’s the second sentence of the Salon review’s third paragraph, and (with ‘haunted’ changed to ‘confronted’) the beginning of the fourth paragraph of Domenech’s.
* Still more from a dkos diarist: But note: I can’t find a date for the Cox piece, so it could be that Domenech’s piece preceded it. I’ve emailed the author, and will update if he replies.
“Translucent and glowing, they ooze up from the ground and float through solid walls, wriggling countless tentacles and snapping their jaws. They’re known as the Phantoms, alien thingies that, for three decades, have been sucking the life out of the earthlings of “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.” Swollen nightmares from a petri dish, they’re the kind of grotesque whatsits horror writer H.P. Lovecraft would have kept as pets in his basement.”
“Translucent and glowing, they ooze up from the ground and float through solid walls, splaying their tentacles and snapping their jaws, dripping a discomfiting acidic ooze. They’re known as the Phantoms, otherworldly beings who, for three decades, have been literally sucking the life out of the earthlings of the human.”
I actually found my own bit. I noticed that when I clicked ‘Home’ on the reviews from Domenech’s college paper, I got an error message, and I wanted to confirm that this was, in fact, legit. The ensuing Google search landed me with a whole list of Domenech’s articles, and since (as a professor) I have some experience with using Google to discover plagiarism, I decided to try my hand at it. I didn’t check many of them (life is short), but I did find this bit, from reviews of Toy Story Two:
“In this sequel, Woody (Tom Hanks) gets snatched at a garage sale by a bad guy, Big Al, voiced by Wayne Knight (Seinfeld’s Newman, forever destined to play the role of an overweight jerk). Unbeknownst to most everybody else, Woody is now a valuable collector’s item, part of a set of ’50s Western-themed toys being put together by an unscrupulous dealer. He intends to sell the toys to a museum in (where else?) Japan. (…)
Woody’s old gang ‹ Rex, the timid dinosaur (Wallace Shawn), Hamm the piggy bank (John Ratzenberger), Slinky Dog (Jim Varney) and Mr. Potato Head (Don Rickles) ‹ leave the security of Andy’s bedroom to rescue their pal, led by the intrepid Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen).”
“In this sequel, Woody gets snatched at a garage sale by a bad guy. Unbeknownst to most everybody else, Woody is now a valuable collector’s item, part of a set of ’50s, Western-themed toys being put together by an unscrupulous dealer.
He intends to sell the toys to a museum in (where else?) Japan. (…)
Woody’s old gang — the timid dinosaur, Hamm the piggy bank, Slinky dog and Mr. Potato Head — leave the security of Andy’s bedroom to rescue their pal, led by the intrepid Buzz Lightyear.”
***
I don’t know Ben Domenech/Augustine at all well. The only post of his I remembered before this all happened was a spectacularly ill-informed piece on stem cells; I contemplated writing something on it, but decided to comment on RedState instead. So I really have no idea what to make of this. I’d be interested in the views of those who follow his work more closely.
However, there are a few things I do know.
First, plagiarism is very serious. I don’t know how much this view is shared by people who don’t write for a living, but for writers, it’s pretty much the ultimate dishonor. Your reputation as a writer or a scholar depends on your written work, and the discovery that you have been passing someone else’s work off as your own is the closest thing we have to a mortal sin.
Second, in my opinion, the Post should not have hired him, not because he’s conservative, but because he has no journalistic experience, and besides, his first few blog posts were pretty dreadful. But if these charges pan out and they don’t fire him, they have no standards at all. Likewise, if they pan out, you have to ask yourself why the Post didn’t do a better job of vetting him before they hired him.
Third, what could he have been thinking when he took the Post job? If anything on earth is predictable, it’s that if the Post hired a lightning rod like Domenech, his work would be gone over with a fine toothed comb. Could he possibly not have anticipated this? If he did, why didn’t he just come up with a decent excuse to say no?
Finally, Ben Domenech/Augustine wrote:
“Ethical rules are the rules for a reason, and the Republican Party is one that respects the rule of law – that means really respecting it, not dancing along the edge. Because when the Democrats play dirty, they should have to stretch the truth; they should have to lie and connive; and they should have to find people like Ronnie Earle to do it for them. If they don’t have to do that, then something’s wrong. (…)
Ethical relativists do not belong in a party founded on moral absolutes. And just because the “Do as you’re told” Republicans get elected doesn’t mean we should ever let them get power. We need to push them out, for the good of the country and the party, and 2006 is the year to do it.”
I completely agree about the need to respect moral values. If these charges are as well-founded as they seem to be, it will be interesting to see whether Ben Domenech has the guts to apply these principles to his own case, or whether he deploys morality only against other people.
(h/t Atrios)
***
Update: RedState’s response is here. If you strip away the parts about liberals being awful, the response to the plagiarism accusations is:
“And now those opposed to Ben have googled prior writings that on the surface appear suspicious, but only because permissions obtained and judgments made offline were not reflected online by an out dated and out of business campus newspaper. But that’s all the opponents want – just enough to sabotage a career, though in the process they will sabotage themselves. Facts have no meaning. Only impressions have any bearing on this. The charges of plagarism are false, meant to bring down a good and honest man. The presented facts to prove plagarism are specious — products of shoddy work.”
I can’t believe they have read all the cases. It’s not just a college newspaper; it’s stuff that appeared in the National Review. Speaking for myself, I would not have written on this if I hadn’t looked at them, and concluded that they were not specious. There are also more than enough cases to make you wonder: can all of these have a benign explanation? I am prepared to discover that they do. But I can’t imagine that Erick (who wrote the RedState piece) would be as confident as he seems to be if he had read all the cases that are coming out.
I also can’t imagine that he wrote his piece without talking to Domenech. If all this turns out somehow to be baseless, well and good. If not, it’s hard to imagine that Domenech hasn’t just added lying to his friends and defenders to plagiarism.
I have some observations of my own about this. First, plagiarism is very serious. I don’t know how much this view is shared by people who don’t write for a living, but for writers, it’s pretty much the most serious dishonor there is. Your reputation as a writer or a scholar depends on your written work, and the discovery that you have been passing someone else’s work off as your own is the closest thing we have to a crime.
Second, in my opinion, the Post should not have hired him, not because he’s conservative, but because he has no record as a journalist, and as well, his first few blog posts were quite dreadful.
So that’s what I have to say about that.
But I do think Red Dawn is a fun movie, although with as much political reality as Conan The Barbarian.
You don’t seem to have linked to his WaPo blog, which is here, by the way (it doesn’t seem to yet be on the paper’s blog page). Anyone else notice that in his second post, the first that wasn’t about the blog itself, he links to an article, and then just says “This is ridiculous and wrong. It’s always better to just let kids be kids and keep the psychologists out of the way – to follow the dictum of an aging hippie couple I know who, despite their pacifist beliefs, still let their boys run around playing army with sticks made into guns”?
There’s no actual substantiation, or linkage, or attempt to back up his assertion. It’s just a link, a quote, and an announcement that something is “ridiculous and wrong.”
Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but shouldn’t one at least pretend to be trying to substantiate assertions?
Man alive, this is a train-wreck.
A train-wreck with slo-mo explosions!
Whoops, WaPo blog page here.
I am so disappointed in WaPo.
Here’s what galls me:
If a liberal wants a job at a newspaper, he has to go to journalism school. He has to start at a small-town paper. If he’s lucky, maybe someday he’ll work for a big respected paper. Along the way, everything he says or does will be carefully monitored by editors and by the public – if he makes too many mistakes, he gets demoted. All this is as it should be.
If a conservative wants a journalism job, no problem. Just walk in the door. No fact-checking will be done. Red-baiting is okay. Want to write for the most prestigious paper in the nation? Okay, no credentials required. Lying is okay. Plagiarism is okay. Anything goes.
Drives me up a wall.
Okay, having looked at them now, I’d say that the swipe from O’Rourke is absolutely indictable.
I’d say that this is much more damning than plot summaries of movies, which are a limited form in which it’s easy to accidentally summarize in similar words; but the piece on throwing parties is original writing, and is unmistakably stolen.
The movie summaries are also clearly stolen, but I regard the stealing of original material as a mildly higher-level offense, although one can certainly argue that since both are stolen both offenses are therefore equally wrong.
I suppose he can just do another “mea culpa, it was useful indiscretion, and I was wrong to have plagiarized,” just as he’s already done a mea culpa for calling Coretta Scott King “a communist” only a couple of months ago.
I meant to include “we’ll see if such a further mea culpa plays with the bosses at washingtonpost.com (which has different management than the paper, I point out to anyone unaware).
As it was, it did seem to me that although it’s perfectly reasonable for the company to hire a partisan Republican blogger, if they like, they should obviously balance it with an equally partisan Democratic blogger, if so, or they’re obviously being unbalanced.
Hilzoy- you’re going to get this boy fired! And we were looking forward to making fun of him for the next few months at the very least!!!
You go girl!
I’ll never forget how you really ripped me a new one about plagiarism. You should link to that Hilzoy, and show how you really care about that topic and not just when it’s a conservative.
Subtle. Stupid, but Subtle…
Gary 😉
The O’Rourke bit is incredible to me. I mean: you Just Don’t Do That.
With college papers, I normally distinguish two basic types of plagiarism: one if just outright theft, the attempt to pass someone else’s work off as one’s own. The other happens when someone really truly doesn’t know what to write, and thinks: well, if I stick really close to the text I’m supposed to be writing about, surely I’ll be safe; but being completely and totally and inexplicably wrong about the line between paraphrase and plagiarism. (Thus, this generally involves plagiarizing the primary source, or at least an assigned text.)
The second type has led to such would-be-funny-if-it-weren’t-serious moments as: freshmen plagiarizing Kant’s Prolegomena in a course in which I assign Kant’s Prolegomena. (I mean: calculate the odds of any freshman writing like Kant. Not the implausibility of having Kant-like content, which is implausible enough, but the implausibility of a freshman spontaneously coming up with his writing style..)
I always give great long stern lectures about this, designed to make absolutely sure that no one is confused. I tell them to consider not just how wrong it is, but how stupid they will feel telling their parents that they were kicked out of school for plagiarizing in an ethics class. But does that stop them? Nooooooo…..
It’s just so wrong, and also so stupid.
Dear Doris,
Since your plagiarism occurred several years before I started blogging, you’ll just have to trust me when I say that I was appalled.
Yours,
hilzoy
1. Mine may be one of the only professions where plagiarism isn’t just condoned, it’s encouraged.
2. Conservative blowhard is a little light on integrity. Stop the presses.
No. 2 wasn’t really well thought out. Please disregard. Apologies to anyone offended.
I did not know that Domenech was “Augustine.” Here you can find him comparing judges to the KKK (worse than the KKK, in fact). Given how frequently “Augustine” posts there, Domenech must spend his day posting to RedState. Must be nice to have a job that affords that kind of leisure, even if he doesn’t take the time to produce original prose.
But I do think Red Dawn is a fun movie
I’ve always loved that flick–and have ever since I first saw it in the theater, ridiculous though it was. Wolverines! I gotta say though, the last time I watched Red Dawn on AMC, or TNT or whatever, the conceit of angry young men resisting the occupation of their country by any means necessary struck me a little differently than it did back in the day.
It’s not just plagiarism. It’s copyright infringement.
That he infringed the copyright of his new employer, well… cake.
“mea culpa, it was useful indiscretion, and I was wrong to have plagiarized,”
That was supposed to be “youthful indiscretion,” alas. And, of course, not an excuse; I’m just saying it’s about the only ploy one can try short of simply resigning.
Doris Kearns Godwin, I’d at least note did a lot of good original writing before she made herself in to an industry and Did Her Wrong Thing. Her first books on Johnson, though very much apologetics for him, had value; so did other work she later did; this is not to excuse her problematic product, but just to note that she also contributed value, as well.
But it’s pretty stupid to screw up your career when you can do good work, of course; probably even stupider than plagiarizing because its your only hope of producing good work, though I’m not setting aside mere ethics, of course, while discussing stupidity as a separate aspect.
I won’t bother blogging about this, since I expect no shortage of coverage Dommench’s plagiarism; he would have been so much smarter to have bitten the bullet at some earlier point, but it’s never easy to do that sort of thing, of course (but, hey, I did an extremely painful “these are the worst things I’ve ever done in my life” post a while back; it was like flaying my skin off, but better to have gotten done, even if the doing was no fun at all).
Well, on the bright side for Dommenech, he’s gotten an early start on his comeback.
The school newspaper he wrote for, The Flat Hat is neither outdated nor out of business. It is the student newspaper for College of William and Mary, it is a weekly and it was started in 1911. I’m sure that they’re very proud of Ben. The current issue on the paper’s website is dated March 17, 2006. I suppose if we discover that last week’s issue was the final issue before they shuttered the doors at The Flat Hat then Erick’s bleating in Domenech’s defense could be true.
Somehow I don’t think it is.
“Well, on the bright side for Dommenech, he’s gotten an early start on his comeback.”
Doesn’t he have to go away first, before he can make a comeback?
Domenech, sorry.
“I did not know that Domenech was ‘Augustine.'”
I don’t read Redstate (or dKos), as a rule, but he’s always been referred to as one of the founders of the site.
To make this now the third blog I’ve said this on in recent days — though I’ve said it at other places at other times in the past — I share only a few of John Milius’s political views, but I think he’s a strong writer, and a good director; to repeat myself for the third time in five days, the guy with the co-screenplay credit for Apocolypse Now, who is the writer-director of The Wind And The Lion, one of my all-time favorite movies, has justified his existence on earth with those alone; no matter that he’s a bit of a right-wing loon, and that, as I said, Red Dawn is as much a fantasy as is Conan. (And Milius was a great choice to write a film that has Ahnold declaiming “Conan, what is best in life?
Conan: To crudsh yah enemies, see dem driven bevore you, and to heah de lamentation of de vemen!”)
I love The Wind And The Lion, but Red Dawn is a fine action comic book/melodrama, though, of course, entirely ludicrous. Harry Dean Standon screaming “Avenge me, boys! Aaaaaavveeeeennnngggggeeeeeee Meeeeeeee!”
Very cute Lea Thompson, too.
Besides, I live in Colorado.
“Doesn’t he have to go away first, before he can make a comeback?”
Give it til Monday.
“I suppose if we discover that last week’s issue was the final issue before they shuttered the doors at The Flat Hat then Erick’s bleating in Domenech’s defense could be true.”
Who is “Erick” and where is he bleating?
I know it’s like shooting fish in a barrel, but more plagiarism from Ben here.
He quite blatantly stole a review of Counting Crow’s “This Desert Life” from a writer named James Hunter.
Example, from Ben’s piece:
From Hunter’s piece:
More? From Ben’s piece:
From Hunter’s piece:
There’s a lot more than just those instances, but you get the point.
Damnit. Apocalypse Now and Harry Dean Stanton.
Gary: see update; or click here.
[Please don’t use us to Googlebomb. I don’t know hilzoy’s preference in this matter, but I don’t like to see this sort of thing go in either direction, much less being an unwilling particpant in said activities. – Ed]
Well, that answers my question of how his ‘base’ handles the issue. Continuing full court press. Good times.
And besides, Gary, the Post already had Ron Nessen to produce that style of blog post.
Also, there appears to be a complete list of Post blogs here.
“Gary: see update….”
Oh. I’d ask “when did that go up?,” but I do think it’s nice if one time-stamps updates, but then, I’m a big fan of time-stamping, but, of course, it’s not obligatory; just a suggestion on my part, of course. Meanwhile I tend to keep reading at the bottom of comments, not checking back at the top each time.
The weirdest thing about this for me is that so many of them are film reviews, which are about the easiest form of journalism to do to a medium standard, and if you can’t be bothered even with that are easy to crib without outright plagiarism. Combined with the astonishing frequency of the plagiarism it suggests to me its something pathological – a desire to get caught, perhaps.
And again, you have to ask why on earth WaPo.com thought he’d be a sensible hire. There are a fair few good conservative bloggers out there – Daniel Drezner and John Cole to name a couple. So why is it always the most inappropriate, unprofessional,moronic ones who get hired? Goldberg? Domenech? What are the people who hire them thinking? And even outside of the hires – when Time lionised Powerline did they even look at the breathtaking inanity and disconnection from reality displayed in the vast majority of their posts?
“Ben is accused of being a racist, gay, homophobe, an incestuous lover of his own mother, a partisan, evil, and now a plagarist.”
He’s not a partisan?
“He is, according to the left….”
Who gets to speak for “the left,” anyway? I’d like to send a memo.
Well, I posted a comment on RedState urging them to read all the cases. We’ll see how long my account there (used maybe three times, ever) remains active.
I’m just waiting for Tacitus to do his drive-by attack on anybody who questions Ben’s honor. You people watch yourself!
“There are a fair few good conservative bloggers out there – Daniel Drezner and John Cole to name a couple.”
I’m sorry, but it’s ridiculous to suggest John as a representative conservative; he’s an apostate with few kind words for the President or the current Republican Party; I like John, but he’s hardly represenative of either conservatives or Republicans.
Dan Drezner also isn’t particularly representative. I don’t know who conservatives or Republicans should nominate, but clearly they need to nominate their own choices, not people us Democrats happen to like.
Just a guess with no research at all, but school newspapers tend to take Spring Break off, and it’s Spring break this week sooo…….
Erick: “For a group of people who yell at my side saying we censor them, jail them, and otherwise silence them, who now is censoring, silencing, and viciously, irrationally attacking? It’s not Ben. It’s not me. it’s not my side.”
Someone is censoring Ben Domenech already? Really? And silencing him? Gosh.
“Should these people succeed, how many bloggers from either side will ever again get so far?”
I hope none if they write as badly as you do, bubbele.
“And now those opposed to Ben have googled prior writings that on the surface appear suspicious, but only because permissions obtained and judgments made offline were not reflected online by an out dated and out of business campus newspaper.”
Yeah, that’ll hold up.
“Why are we silent? We should not be, even if it costs us to defend Ben. Ben has done more and contributed more to our community than many of us, whether at RedState or elsewhere. We must not stay silent. We must defend our own. We must defend Ben.”
Good times, indeed. By all means, put your credibility on the line.
But what’s the reputation of this guy, Erick, at Redstate? Unknown? Minor? Major? I see that: “I’m an attorney and political consultant in Macon, Georgia.”
Um, ideology aside, not someone, on the evidence of this post, who looks as if he is going to be good at either job, though maybe he was just having a very off night, or was drunk, or something.
What the Washington Post is Teaching Your Children About ‘Plagiarism’
Like most daily newspapers, the WaPo runs a scam that enables them to inflate their circulation figures for advertisers special program for schools called Newspapers in Education. They sell reduced-cost newspapers to grade and high schools (or they fin…
Ah, I see that Josh Trevino is offering the only possible line of defense. Youthful indiscretion.
Expect Domenech’s apology by tomorrow.
Prediction: Since Domenech was home-schooled, the next step is to accuse critics of being unable to accept home-schooling as a viable option. This will probably be helped along when enough people make cracks about Ben’s education.
Interestingly, I read that he graduated from the same school as Jon Stewart, though it must have been several years afterwards, I guess.
“Why are we silent? We should not be, even if it costs us to defend Ben. Ben has done more and contributed more to our community than many of us, whether at RedState or elsewhere. We must not stay silent. We must defend our own. We must defend Ben.”
Avenge me, Wolverines!
nterestingly, I read that he graduated from the same school as Jon Stewart, though it must have been several years afterwards, I guess.
William & Mary. And so far as we know, Domenech didn’t graduate. He dropped ou and joined the Bush administration.
Or, in his own words:
“After studying government and less important things at the College of William & Mary, he abandoned the journalism career track for a taxpayer-funded life in the wake of the 9/11 attacks…”
“Prediction: Since Domenech was home-schooled, the next step is to accuse critics of being unable to accept home-schooling as a viable option.”
Did you actually write this before seeing this?: The midgets’ fury, part 2: homeschooling. (Yes, now I’m taking a glance at Redstate; I didn’t say I never ever would look at it or dKos.)
Man, there’s nothing more than a good denunciation of “they.” You know: them.
They are always such dumb mother-effs, they are. We hates Them. They are responsible for all that is foul and wrong. Darn Them!
There’s nothing more coherent than denouncing Them. Whomever They are.
Cross my heart, Gary. Though I don’t think it was a remarkably prescient things to say, unfortunately.
Youthful indiscretion.
It’s interesting that the phrase “teenage years” has now popped up twice. I detect a future talking point. Wouldn’t “college years” be, you know, more accurate? As in “accurate”.
This is a very interesting exercise in meta.
We have all had many opportunities, over the last half-decade, to see how the Republicans react to a scandal. And now we get a chance to see how their most fervent disciples have learned their lessons.
We see Erick leading off with the full-throated defense, hammering the character of the bloodthirsty liberals who raised these issues, harping on one or two examples where the critics might have overstated their case, completely ignoring the more egregious and seemingly indefensible cases. A firm assertion that the facts completely vindicate Ben, but only the vaguest assertion to back that up: “permissions obtained and judgments made offline were not reflected online by an out dated and out of business campus newspaper.”
In the comments, the evolution of a talking point proceeds along various tracks. Everyone tosses out their own idea.
Clinton did it too.
These are just partisan attacks.
It’s easier than you think to plagiarize by accident.
He was young, and it was only movie reviews.
We have no way of proving that permission WASN’T given.
We don’t owe any sort of factual response, since the liberals attacked without asking for one.
Just as the big Republicans do, they will sit back as these talking points are knocked down, one by one, and simply go with whichever turns out to be most viable. If it turns out the most viable defense is “he was young and foolish,” they will all start repeating it. Completely forgotten will be Erick’s assertion that permission was, in fact, received. That doesn’t fit the new story, so down the memory hole it will go.
I can’t help but be impressed by how well these folks learn their lessons from the successful politicians they admire. Think of Dan Rather, disgraced and abandoned by virtually all his former fans on the Left, save a few who bravely maintain it was all a Rovian plot. If Dan Rather had been a conservative, on the other hand, the Right would be naming journalism schools after him today, just to show their scorn for the liberals who tried to smear the name of a great man.
“But, but, it wasn’t really plagiarism, ’cause he was young, and it was movie and record reviews not real writing and it was on-line not in a real newspaper and he was always right so who cares and I love him. Go, Ben.” These guys are so infused with the Spirit of Rove that they don’t even pretend their arguments have any merit. It’s just verbal chaff, tossed out to deflect the incoming fire.
FYI: A paid blogger was just fired by the Boston Globe for plagiarism.
“Dan Drezner also isn’t particularly representative. I don’t know who conservatives or Republicans should nominate, but clearly they need to nominate their own choices, not people us Democrats happen to like”
Well, sure, but it’s hard to think of a “representative” righty blogger who isn’t either a frothing bigot, a Republican shill or a cretin. The intelligent righty blogs aren’t representative – would you consider the Volokh Conspiracy to be representative? I certainly don’t “happen to like” Volokh or his co-conspirators, but at least he supports his arguments with pertinent facts, which is surely the basic requirement for reasonable discourse, but one which most “representative” bloggers fail to meet. Even someone like Instapundit (who I think falls into the second category, but pretends to be non-partisan) finds it difficult to construct arguments consisting of words other than “indeed”, “heh” or “More here”, which would hardly make him suitable for a national newspaper’s blog. And take the Goldberg example – he really is the most moronic, juvenile and lazy of all the Cornerites, so why on earth did the LAT pick him? Why not someone like Derbyshire or Podhoretz who at least write like adults, however objectionable their views?
Perhaps this is all a conservative plot to demonstrate the evils of affirmative action. After all, Domenech was hired only because he was a right-winger.
Nice footwork by Trevino in the homeschooling post, by the way:
Apparently Josh thinks that Domenech’s creationism and refusal to accept evolution is entirely “unrelated” to his education, which is an, um, interesting point of view. Oh and what is wrong with expecting educators to have training? When you hire a plumber do you hire someone with training or a professional?
These people are [naughty, naughty. Please read the posting rules and comply. Thanks – Ed] unbelievable. They even deny it’s plagiarism. Apparently it’s just inspiration. See the response of Leon H Wolf to hilzoy:
Just for the record, these are the first sentences in the reprinted paragraphs:
Ben:
Cox news:
You see, Leon saw the movie, so he knows there’s no other way to describe it other than “translucent and glowing, they ooze up from the ground and float through solid walls”. The english language is just not rich enough to convey that image. And that sentence, it just reverberates in your brain, until you accidentally blurt it out.
And hilzoy also brings up another point that seems to be completely missed in the discussion. Since when do you quote whole sentences from another review in your own review, even if it’s attributed? Obviously before he quoted Cox news he went through the hassle of obtaining permission, but he just didn’t bother to put it in the review itself. Or, rather, he probably did it in the printed edition, but the lazy bastard who posted it online sabotaged his work.
There’s the republican Occam’s Razor for you – if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck it must be a table that went through an undisclosed procedure in a secret lab where dinosaurs reconstructed from DNA gave it duck qualities.
Some great quotes from your links, Steve: “How many papers/documents have you written in your lifetime? I recently graduated college and they have a nifty new program out there that will literally take your entire paper and sift through it and tell you if there is any bit of plagiarism in it. I would be glad to go through yours and I’d bet my car (not a new one, but it’s nice) that you’ve done it a time or two without even realizing you were doing it. In fact, one thing I’ve learned in college is that people don’t realize how hard it is to NOT plagarize. You’d be hard pressed to find a single person in the entire civilized world that has been required to write a paper that didn’t plagarize, whether on purpose or not if they had someone who wasn’t specifically schooled in editing for those kinds of things looking over their work.”
Wow. I’m a college dropout, myself, but I’ve written hundreds of thousands of words that are searchable via Google and Google Groups, and I’m perfectly happy for anyone to try to find any pattern of plagiarism in my work. Some occasional parallel ideas, sure, but I’m definitely one of those people who “don’t realize how hard it is to NOT plagarize,” and I’ve done a fair amount of professional editing and copyediting, too, over thirty years.
The idea that young Ben got “permission” to write the same words as all this stuff is also hilariously risible. I’d like to hear P. J. O’Rourke’s response.
Ginger Yellow: “The intelligent righty blogs aren’t representative – would you consider the Volokh Conspiracy to be representative?”
I don’t read it much these days, either, although it’s still on my blogroll, but it’s representative of the intellectual wing of a few threads of libertarian legal views, last I looked.
I definitely amn’t going to play “which NRO contributor is more [anything]?,” though. 🙂
But I’m not much of a lumper in general, as a rule.
retsesivi: I have a certain sympathy for Leon’s argument in the abstract. Once, when I was maybe thirteen, I was writing a poem, and wrote ‘the still point of the turning world’, and it took maybe a week for me to realize that I hadn’t come up with it myself — that it had lodged in my brain and then, later, emerged, stripped of the name ‘TS Eliot’. (Maybe if I hadn’t been 13, the quality alone would have been a tip-off.)
But not in this case. For one thing, that is not a remotely possible explanation of the PJ O’Rourke piece. For another, that sort of thing does not happen over and over and over and over again.
The thing is, I sort of feel for the RedState editors. I can’t imagine what it would feel like if, say, Sebastian were being publicly taken down like this. That said, though, it’s just wrong.
A little depresing to skim through that 7days comment thread Roxanne linked to and see all the people complaining that they don’t see what the fuss was about with plagiarism, and accusing the people at the site of being “snitches” and evil people for not having kept it “private” and for having been so dreadful as to tell the editors of the site that unknowing used the plagiarized material.
But probably the majority of people are clueless about intellectual property; it’s always clearly seemed so, in my experience.
My response above, by the way, relates to a comment in the Red state response by Erick
One last thing. I’m sick and tired of people treating college students like some kind of retards. So what if he was 17? I think the guy is only 24 now. There’s absolutely no way he didn’t know at the time it was wrong to do that. I’m not saying everyone should be burdened by every youthful indescretion, but this reflects on his character and professionalism. It’s not a silly prank. It’s a regular column he published in a freaking college paper.
Hilzoy: “But not in this case.”
Sure. Anyone can unintentionally replicate a phrase at times, absolutely; that’s perfectly easy to do in innocence. Of course.
And describing a movie plot in similar terms can also be done innocently.
But that’s not plagiarism, in either case.
Long strips of material, over and over and over, is something else entirely, and that’s plagiarism.
Our friends at RedState appear to be exhibiting some serious denial. Hilzoy is being remarkably gracious and gentle as she tries to nudge them towards reality.
I don’t blame them for instinctively sticking by their friend. Loyalty is an admirable quality. If someone attacked my friend, I’d like to think my first impulse would be to defend them as well.
But one thing I find truly despicable is when people lie to their friends about their innocence, when they let those friends like like fools for defending them. That shows an astonishing lack of character.
A few weeks back, there was a story about pro football player Ricky Williams, who failed a drug test for about the fifth time in his career. In fact, he had quit the league at one time because he didn’t want to give up smoking marijuana.
The media, for whatever reason, went and interviewed his mom, who said there must be some mistake because she knew, she just knew, that Ricky wasn’t using that stuff any more. He told her so. He’d changed.
I’ll tell you, I couldn’t care less about a grown man smoking pot, but lying to your mother? Inexcusable. Now the entire world thinks his mother is a chump, because she did what any mother would do and trusted her son’s word.
Anyway, I don’t know that lying to your co-bloggers is quite as despicable as lying to your mother, but I think it’s very weak of him to let his colleagues at RedState look like fools for following their natural inclinations and sticking up for him.
Steve: roughly that line of thought is part of the explanation for my having commented at RedState at all. (The only other time I can recall doing so was to correct some facts on a stem cell piece. I really do think it’s their space, etc., etc.)
Why Domenech? Well, DC native, William & Mary, father works at the White House, I suspect WaPo expected that most valuable commodity, access. Believe it or not…ok believe it, paranoia cest moi…I have always thought Tacitus and the RedState crowd had some very special connections and insider knowledge, and have spent some time trying to read between their lines to know if we are attacking Iran. Condi might know less than Domenech.
Plagiarism is powerful, and will probably do it, but I wish we could have gotten Domenech on substantial grounds from his current and future posts. There would have been many Coretta S King moments I am sure, and an ideological firing would have been more useful. We need to discredit the ideology, not the personnel.
I hear Dana Milbank recommended him. I hope he gets no damage. It is possible that Milbank was set up, but see above on paranoia.
Your fear of being banned was absolutely precious, by the way. They’re not THAT trigger-happy! 🙂
“All the gods, they cannot sever us. If I were dead and you were still fighting for life, I’d come back from the darkness. Back from the pit of hell to fight at your side.”
Michelle. Hugh. Rush. Glenn. This is the moment. Where will you stand?
retsesivi: Domenech is a creationist, so perhaps we should apply the principles of Intelligent Design to his movie reviews. Clearly the chances of him coming up with such similar passages again and again are like those of a tornado in a junkyard assembling a 747.
Gary: I’m not asking you to play “lumping” games. I’m just genuinely baffled as to why these papers with reputations to defend seem to hire the least appropriate people. Unless you go along with Brad DeLong’s “discredit the right wing” theory, it’s almost inexplicable.
Why Ben? Daily newspaper execs are hyper-focused on reaching young people. And they figure young people want to read young people. WaPo found a dude under 30 who could put nouns and verbs together and had all the additional attibutes mcmanus outlines above.
Washington Post Steps In It
A few days ago I wrote, “This is probably the dumbest thing the Washington Post Online could have done from a long-term business perspective. First the whole Red State/Blue State meme is on the way out. Second, giving voice to one of the founders of racis
It just struck me: The college paper has higher standards (which led him to borrow prose from others) than the freakin’ Washington Post, which ask no more of him than incoherent, stream-of-consciousness rants. Astounding.
Washington Post Blogger Caught Plagiarizing
The Washington Post’s newly-minted Conservative voice, Ben Domenech, is toast. When I heard that he’d been caught plagiarizing, I decided to start Googling one of his old articles just for fun and — lo and behold! — I found another…
“Steve: roughly that line of thought is part of the explanation for my having commented at RedState at all.”
Link?
“I’m just genuinely baffled as to why these papers with reputations to defend seem to hire the least appropriate people.”
I don’t know whom else you are referring to besides Domenech, but I suspect that there’s something to the notion that they’re trying to hire an alien.
I suppose there’s also something of an effect for pushing the system when you hire too many young prodigies (and here I’m thinking of some other famous recent youthful plagiarists, such as Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair, though Blair’s “youth” was 27), though speaking as someone who was writing crap (published only in mimeographed form, fortunately) at age 12 and onwards, and who was otherwise A Smart Kid, I’d hate to see people in their late teens and early twenties not get opportunities, or be regarded with suspicion; which is why I retsesivi that being young is no excuse; one can’t have it both ways, and want credit for doing good work when youngish and also have your age taken as an excuse for screwing up; pick one.
Washington Post Blogger Caught Plagiarizing
The Washington Post’s newly-minted Conservative voice, Ben Domenech, is toast. When I heard that he’d been caught plagiarizing, I decided to start Googling one of his old articles just for fun and — lo and behold! — I found another…
but I suspect that there’s something to the notion that they’re trying to hire an alien.
Not anymore, the Weekly World News already locked Zasnorb IV from the Sirius Cluster into a contract for a weekly column for the next two years.
Well, if nothing else, this is another example in a long, long line of modern Republicans who put the lie to the myth of the meritocracy; an upper-class white male of fair-to-middling talent, little real insight and apparently flexible ethics who has ascended to a position of prestige and success not because he earned it in any discernible way, but because of who he knows and who his parents are. I bet Ben Domenech disapproves of affirmative action, too.
hilzoy, you have it all wrong. Just like your quote of Eliot, young Ben’s various indiscretions were nothing more than allusions. Just like you, Mr. Domenech was attempting to rewrite the tradition (of movie criticism) through his reworking of traditional material.
It’s not plagiarism, it’s just the homage that one artist (of movie criticism) gives to another.
Steve, I just got banned from redstate because I spoke up about somebody else’s being banned from redstate, because they posted evidence of the guy’s plagiarism. They (for at least a subset of the editors) *are* that trigger-happy.
It is bit sad to see some one given a job without his bona-fides checked. It certainly appears (to a total outsider) that he got the job because of who he is rather than what he can do. It is even sadder that, being a conservative, he probably does not believe people should be employed in this way.
Following links to redstate it is frightening to see them talk about the left as evil. (spartikus link 1:49) Certainly nobody at this site has ranted in ways they describe.
I find all this a good example of the political divide in the US, that has only become worse since 9/11(so it appears to me).
Disregarding all the ranting, plagerism is wrong, plain and simple, no excuses. It is good to see the college newspaper has put up a statement regarding possible plagarism before the review that hilzoy links to. At least they appear to be taking it seriously.
Not anymore, the Weekly World News already locked Zasnorb IV from the Sirius Cluster into a contract for a weekly column for the next two years.
You’re thinking of the Weekly Standard. Oh, Zasnorb IV — I thought you said “Fred Barnes.”
Not that fond of Dana “Designated RNC Hitman on John Conyers” Millbank.
True, for a while he asked tough questions. a little while. Pretending to care the way woodward used to. we’re seeing the real Bob now.
I hit him a while back on something almost nonpolitical, something where he and his cowriter were quite frankly incorrect (they claimed for the first time ever a majority of americans thought the iraq invasion had not made them safer) and I showed them pretty much bulletproof evidence of that (plenty of polls from 2 years before showing that exact result, including one by ABC, their partner in the new poll), and they simply both weaseled. Well, it wasn’t “our” poll. So on that solipsistic basis, even with 2 other (at least) 2 year old polls saying otherwise, we are going to claim they were wrong. and stand by our fantasy.
So Millbank doesn’t even give a damn about accuracy in a noncontroversial thing. I say that because you can take their error any way you like, on the one hand, americans have been more out of step with the whore media for longer than they want known, on the other hand, americans felt that way yet bush still got close enough to steal in 2004, so it can’t be that big a deal, etc.
Classy…RedState imposes 5 day waiting period for new accounts. And I thought they were against waiting periods…
(yes, yes, piling on is unseemly, but they’ve been measured and if the word objective has any meaning in these discussions, they have objectively been found wanting.)
But will we hear that Young Ben’s work is superior to that he had copied because it is much richer in allusions?
The first thing I noticed, upon reading some of the examples, was that Domenech’s versions contain subtle differences that generally make them worse than the originals. Then something else occurred to me. If his excuse is that he had obtained permission but somehow “forgot” to mention that fact, then why is he posting modified versions? In my experience, if you get permission from an author to copy part of their work, you get permission to copy it verbatim to preserve the original author’s meaning. It seems extremely unlikely that Domenech has consistently gotten not only permission to use others’ work but the extra permission to modify it and/or post it without attribution. That’s just not credible. Plagiarism is by far the more likely explanation.
Your fear of being banned was absolutely precious, by the way. They’re not THAT trigger-happy! 🙂
They ban at the drop of a hat. I must say the cognitive dissonance on display over there is quite impressive. Trevino’s comments in particular.
“The W&M stuff, in isolation, does not concern me overmuch. (And the W&M honor code, not at all.)”
Nice.
In any case, Kurtz has an interview up with Domenech now. Apparently the fault lies with “a college editor improperly adding language to some of his articles”.
Of course the opposition media hires the least competent conservatives – it’s a plot to discredit conservatism. They could hire conservatives who know how to write and argue (such as the brilliant Bill O’Reilly, the scintillating Ann Coulter, or the incomparable Michelle Malkin), but that would undermine their anti-american, objectively pro-terrorist agenda. Or something like that.
This is the same Josh Trevino who removed front-page posting privileges from . . . gah, I can’t remember the handle . . . Trickster? at Tacitus.org because he wouldn’t denounce Communism strenuously enough? That Josh Trevino, who now doesn’t advocate kicking people to the curb? Well, OK then.
OT question that’s not intended to slam shinypenny. I think of an interview as being pretty much non-interrupted discussion that may be slightly modified, but generally rendered in its raw form. The Kurtz piece isn’t what I would call an interview, but am I just behind the times on that?
It’s interesting that Domenech was a speechwriter for Tommy Thompson, which I think was also Treviño’s gig. I imagine someone is going over Thompson’s speeches with a fine tooth comb now.
It’s not surprising a founder of Redstate is a plagiarist given their history of tight message control and inability to take criticism.
Redstate is hilariously sensitive when it comes to handing out bans. They will ban people who post totally fact based posts if they counter the current talking points. I have seen people banned for:
1) Countering a claim that Bush has “NEVER” lied.
2) Countering a claim that Republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility.
3) Debunking the methodology behind insisting that soldiers are safer in Iraq than in the US.
‘Streif’ has now even taken to threatening to contact posters ISP’s for making unpopular posts. Can anyone name a liberal blog that is this bad?
It does seem to be a classic example of IOKIFYAR. 🙂
The Flat Hat is not out of business, at least as far as I know–my spouse is on the faculty at William & Mary.
Here’s a link–looks current to me. http://flathat.wm.edu/
I can’t believe he’s denying this! Man, they are out to lunch!
I know RedState has an itchy trigger finger. On the other hand, I am not banned, so there must be some way to soothe the savage beast.
I suspect hilzoy does not face the ban stick, not only because her posts were characteristically reasonable and nowhere near the line, but also because she buys ink by the barrel. 🙂
This kind of statement made while posting under false names, Mac…I just don’t know what to make of that. I’m sure there’s a rich nugget of irony in there somewhere.
I think Glenn Greenwald nails it once again.
Ah, guilt-by-association. I haven’t seen anyone reputable use that so casually in a while.
Ben Domenech is a serial plagiarist
The Washington Post’s new right wing blogger isn’t just an incoherent extremist. As hilzoy meticulously documents, Ben Domenech is a plagiarist. The WaPo publishes lesson plans for school children with titles like Research Integrity. Roxanne wonders wh…
RedState’s defense seems to have settled on “which of us never made a mistake in college?” Completely forgotten is Erick’s statement at the head of the post referring to “prior writings that on the surface appear suspicious, but only because permissions obtained and judgments made offline were not reflected online by an out dated and out of business campus newspaper.” That’s odd. I mean, here we have Erick saying very clearly that Domenech had permission to use the material he used, and yet all the commentors are acting like he did something wrong.
And Domenech himself is undercutting both groups of defenders: “Domenech said he needed to research the examples but that he never used material without attribution and had complained about a college editor improperly adding language to some of his articles.” As a lawyer myself, I feel for the tough spot Erick is in. It’s difficult when your client decides to go with a completely different defense than the one you so carefully constructed for him.
This kind of statement made while posting under false names, Mac…
Getting the hang of this IP address thingie, eh Slart? If Mac is who I think it is, I’m more than a little embarrassed.
I have to confess I’ve done the same thing, myself, but I thought that DKG bit was out of line.
Attacking Ben Domenech II
On Wednesday, I defended Ben Domenech against inflammatory and over-the-top attacks by several bloggers on the Left, challanging opponents to, Criticize his arguments, not his upbringing. Now, a second round of attacks are underway that …
In the comments to Trevino’s “mistakes of youth” post, we are seeing another interesting line of defense:
I wonder how far the RedState defenders will be willing to take this “blogs are inherently non-credible” argument?
As far as getting banned from RedState, and I have long let my tacitus account lapse and never applied to RS:
I have a general attitude toward commenting on blogs where I am not a regular or have different interests or philosophies or ideologies. I don’t. Or do so very gingerly and carefully and politely. I consider it trolling. That goes from RS to Pharyngula(atheism) to the Valve to DKos.
Domenech is a friend of RS. That is not my problem.
You know, I thought about posting a reply on Redstate saying many of the same things that Hilzoy, along with some of the Republicans there with ethics, have been saying–you know, don’t hang your hat on this guy, there’s more to this than just liberals frothing about a conservative columnist, etc. I have made it this far in commenting there without being banned.
But I just don’t care. If Redstate wants to hang their credibility on this clown, then pass the popcorn so I have something to munch on while he goes down in flames. I don’t see a loss of credibility for them or their plagiarizing pet rock as anything but a net positive.
The Post ombudsman is saying it’s not her job to say anything about Domenech, although she had no problem attacking Dan Froomkin a few months back. Apparently washingtonpost.com is only part of her portfolio when she wants it to be.
The flathat now has this up at the second link posted by hilzoy (I assume it wasn’t there when she first linked to it):
Editor’s note: It has been brought to the attention of The Flat Hat that Ben Domenech, a writer for The Flat Hat from 1999 to 2001, copied from and failed to cite sources in several articles. The Flat Hat is currently investigating these allegations.
As for redstate banning, I think they get some sort of emotional release from it, some pretending its a mock execution, saying things like “Blam!”
And 4 of the last 5 front page posts there now about this whole thing (a post by Moe being the exception). Each more screeching than the last.
Plagiarism and Ben Domenech
hilzoy at Obsidian Wings has an interesting, and damning piece on Ben Domenech and some serious charges of plagiarism.
I have paid marginal attention to the WaPo/Domenech flap, expect to have noted that he was hired to blog from the Right for WaPo an…
You know it’s funny, because I could swear they have published Molly Ivins, (some jokes I understand) Mike Barnicle, (other jokes) Doris
Kearns Goodwin (her Kennedy tome; anyone check
before giving an advance on the Lincoln book or
letting her on Imus or MSNBC; Joseph Ellis, didn’t
plagiarize, but he invented whole swaths of his
bio; including his Airborne service in Vietnam, and
aide to Westmoreland. Right off the back, those examples come to mind. We don’t even want to bring
up King’s plagiarism do we.
LOL.
Yeah it would be just awful embarrassing, except for two facts:
1. It was just a joke, and I assumed by hilzoy’s clever response that she at least got it
2. Since I know ya’ll can see the IP addressing, and I was using my most common IP address, I knew you knew and you should assume I knew too.
As you would say, “lighten up Francis”, but if you think it out of line Slart, then I happily apologize.
Right off the back, those examples come to mind.
These are examples of people whom you claim have plagiarised other writers?
I look forward to the reaction at redstate when Domenech admits his plagiarism. I mean, the O’Rourke thing is irrefutable (the only possible excuse is that he had permission).
The flathat also has a staff editorial on the matter here.
Hey, if it was all in good fun, then my work is done. I figured, as you say, that you couldn’t have been stupid enough to think that…but then I thought possibly that you’d thrown that up in haste and annoyance. And I thought that my response was more or less in kind.
Besides, I have no idea to what extent hilzoy bothers to check such things, so the “obviously a joke” factor may not have applied.
Now that I’m done sucking all of the fun out of this situation, have a nice day.
Oh, and: agree with hilzoy or not, her responses are rarely unclever, so I wouldn’t take cleverness as a signifier that she got the joke.
Sorry, it looked as if there was just a wee drop of fun left.
I’d respond, but I waiting on Joe Biden’s office.
Do you need crediblity to write opinions on a webpage?
That’s one of the most awesome defenses of anyone, ever. No wonder trevino is so highly regarded in the blogosphere.
THE DOMENECH DEBACLE
I just got home from Pittsburgh and am late heading out the door for the Abdul Rahman event in D.C., but I can’t let this blog sit silent about the plagiarism debacle now engulfing young conservative Ben Domenech, the Washington…
And 4 of the last 5 front page posts [on redstate are] now about this whole thing
Make that 5 of 6, it’s now apparently about “decency.”
Jokes are an interesting question for plagiarism, because, with the exception of current event jokes, probably 90% are plagiarized.
The Goodwin plagiarism case is mirrored by similar problems with Stephen Ambrose, and harkens back to an earlier case of Alec Haley and Roots. All of these seem to be related to be related to the use of research assistants.
Not sure what Joseph Ellis is doing there, but if you want a mundane Republican example, there is George Deutsch and Michael Brown who quickly come to mind, and have an advantage over Ellis in that they were appointed to government positions.
Martin Luther King, well, if you think he’s diminished by plagiarism, you probably think he was a commie as well.
And Mac, nice to see you around, and sorry if I jumped on you there. My own preference for the way to go with false names is the way it went down in this thread (go to the bottom 1/3rd or so where we start discussing Tolstoy and Dostoyevski) but I’ve been told that I’m overly sensitive.
Do you need crediblity to write opinions on a webpage?
Having been written on a web page, this has reached the Klein bottle stage of argument.
Confession: I did just about the exact same thing over at PW and Jeff banned me. He unbanned immediately after I explained, though. And I did apologize, even though it wasn’t required, because staging a joke badly is reason for being contrite.
Not saying anything about you, here, Mac; it’s all me.
There is a difference between a youthful indiscretion and a pattern of youthful indiscretions.
Just realized that may be too obscure, my comment should be interpreted as the opposite of a defense.
Although trevino’s “you don’t need credibility to be an opinion writer” defense still sets the gold standard, I also greatly enjoy all the RedStaters who are proffering the “we’ve all done far worse than this” defense. Keep pushing that one, friends.
Michelle Malkin isn’t happy with Ben. I’m not a fan of some of the attack viciousness that goes on the internet. Some Redstate.com writers seem to be caught up in a “Ben has been subject to lots of unfair attacks before so this must be yet another unfair attack” mindset–hence the focus on the other unfair attacks. But previous unfair attacks don’t mean that current ones are unfair. By example attacking Bush for not making the case for an “imminent threat” when he argued against that standard is unfair. Arguing that he didn’t follow through with a proper commitment in dealing with a threat on the standard he did use is not an unfair attack.
I thought the racism accusations were over the top, but that’s the blogosphere for you.
But, the plagiarism stuff is utterly damning.
If I were a conservative blogger, I’d be starting a campaign to get an honest and worthy social conservative named as a replacement–someone like Patterico or Bainbridge.
“Michelle Malkin isn’t happy with Ben.” …SH
I suspect it is over. Proper vetting isn’t that hard, I am a little surprised the Post doesn’t have anyone with minimal Google skills. What did it take, 48 hours? Big Media obviously does not yet get the internets, poor fellers. They still have contempt for those who do not do their information gathering by phone or doing lunch. Why, anybody who actually knows anything doesn’t go online. Only the rabble. They better learn quick.
I also think that the Malkin comments pretty much seals the deal. It’s all a matter of how his departure from the WaPo is announced.
Steve –
Just to clarify, that defense comes not from Trevino, but from a commenter named “Neil Stevens” who was commenting on the Trevino post. I have no particular brief to carry for tacitus, but I would be pretty surprised if he bought into this line of defense.
“Machiavel” on decency (oh, there’s a good one).
… they even attacked his little dog Checkers.
docj at RedState throws Malkin over the side and bravely soldiers on:
So, does Malkin believe there are any people whose political instincts and beliefs differ significantly from hers (or, I guess, Jesse’s) that is not a “deranged moonbat” or somesuch iteration? No? Yeah, probably not.
KCinDC – hilarious.
Serious business for Ben. He needs to fully answer the charges. Malkin has weighed in against him.
This is all lovely stuff. By which I mean not lovely, but we swim in rhetorical waters polluted most recently by the punks on the Right at Redstate, some of whom sprinkle enough Latin and “hithertos” in their dense, glutinous prose that I need to follow my cat into the corner and choke up hairballs.
Trevino’s most recent front-page post regarding “Midgets” leads off with this intro, probably supplied by the Directors (ominous-sounding, that):
“Back from the diaries, the level of irrational vitriol is worth remembering. These people will stop at nothing to destroy good people”
Yes, I suppose. Vitriol is virus-like and I’ve developed a raging case of it over the past 18 years or so. It was tough not to, given the airborne aerosal vitriol microbes released into the general atmosphere by the punks recruited by the Republican Party since Gingrich declared war.
But the quote is very sweet as a lead in to a post by a guy (Trevino) who some time ago called former Max Cleland a “martyr” because of the Senator’s anger at the tactics used by the Saxby Chambliss campaign (the White House) in, what, 2002?
Cleland has one arm that still works after his injuries in Vietnam. I would have loved it if Trevino had been standing just within grasping distance of Cleland’s wheelchair when he called the man a “martyr”. I suspect that one arm is very strong and the hand a vise, given all it must do since the paralysis. Throttling a punk, who happened to swallow a thesaurus at a precocious age, by the throat would have a been so right and good.
Trevino uses words like “martyr”, “chief”, “midget” like normal, patriotic Americans, like me, use the word “c———-“. Like the punks in “A Clockwork Orange” they believe some sprightly rendition of “Singing in the Rain”
might mask the damage they’ve done to our politics, our government, and our country.
Then Machiavel at Redstate follows up with a post about all the awful things being said about Domenech, including, of Liberals, “they called him a homosexual”.
Can you imagine? Calling one of the big swinging dicks in the manly Party “homosexual”. And a guy with the handle “Machiavel” is scandalized, not to mention martyred. It’s a rough game. Which I didn’t start. But I want to win, by any means.
It’s all O.K. I visit Redstate for my daily shot of testosterone Hutu traitor talk. It gets my heart started in the morning and lets me face the fact that I’m probably going to end fighting a bunch of punks in the streets one day.
I plagiarized myself, once. Didn’t even footnote myself.
I’ve also shamelessly swiped jokes, ideas for jokes and other related things for most of my life. And for what? I’m still just not very funny.
As for Ben, I never read anything of his, so I don’t feel all that robbed that maybe it wasn’t his after all. If he did half of what he’s been accused of, he needs to ‘fess up for his own sake. But I really don’t care all that much.
Now, if it turns out Neal Stephenson or someone whose work I actually enjoy has been shamelessly slicing entire paragraphs virtually intact from the works of others, well, I’ll be crushed for a bit. Then I’ll have to read up on those others.
To be clear, I’m not critiquing Ben’s work or making any sort of value judgement either way as to its worthiness for display in the MSM, because (as I mentioned at least once) I’ve never read any of it.
I know as a dismissal, this comment is sorely lacking. Sorry, it’s all the outrage I can muster at present.
I think this is one of the things that makes you and I different, although not so long ago we had that in common. Call me a man whose moral gyrocompass is still searching for North.
I just fervently hope that North isn’t in the same direction as “any means necessary”, because that way doesn’t look so good to me anymore. If you’re into games theory, it’s probably just fine, but playing the game to win and playing the game to finish as well as you can while keeping virtue intact, those two don’t always agree.
“Malkin has weighed in against him.”
O.K., so now I’m on Domenech’s side in this.
These guys always have someone more ferocious waiting in the wings to make sure their ferociousness isn’t marred by ordinary human frailties like plagiarism.
Watching some of the frothing over at Redstate is truly entertaining, and just a little bit saddening. It’s a display of cognitive dissonance and victim complexes that’s practically unparallelled. I suppose some of it can be chalked up to the reflexive defense of a friend, but come on: when I find out a friend has done something stupid or crappy, I consider it my solemn duty to tell them so.
I’m kind of sorry about this, in a way. There’s going to be some blowback to the credibility of all bloggers, at least as far as establishment media is concerned. I blame Ben for being a plagiarist schmuck, and WaPo for failing to do due diligence on him, to say nothing of thinking they need to hire a GOP party operative to “balance” a professional journalist.
But I can’t really be sorry about the Redstate folks who are defending him, who will end up looking real stupid. They’ve hitched their wagon to BenDom, and watching their heads explode as this plays out is going to be /glorious/.
NotSoBlueStater thinks it’s really the Post’s fault, though maybe a little bit Domenech’s:
OK, the response I’m ‘borrowing’ from Biden’s office came in, but I can’t seem to post it.
.
It’s too long.
“..win, by any means.”
Well, not if it involves water sports of any kind. 😉
Catsy, any of them whose heads were susceptible to exploding succumbed years ago. Natural selection has produced a tribe with explosion-proof heads.
“What did it take, 48 hours?”
You need to remember the 60 Minutes fake documents thing. 48 hours on the blogosphere can be hundreds or thousands of man hours of work. I’m not sure that can actually be replicated easily by a single person. Once you know you are looking for plagiarism (and if you know how to do it properly on google) it isn’t ridiculously hard. But if you had investigated a bunch of other charges (the intial pass on dKos was more of a throw stuff up and see what sticks variety) and found them baseless you might not try very hard on the plagiarism charge if you haven’t already been given a clear example. Once you know it is out there, you look harder.
(This is not a defense of plagiarism at all. This is a defense against the idea that a single editor can be expected to compete with “48 hours” of intense blogosphere scrutiny). The proof is in what you do after stuff comes to light. 60 Minutes pretty much failed on that one, but it was also the first time it had really happened. The charge basically blossomed early yesterday. Give them a until Wednesday or so (the old media grinds slowly) and we can judge how well they reacted. (This will also provide another 48 hours of digging.)
Domenech Must Go
Michelle Malkin covers the topic thats all over the blogosphere this morning: Ben Domenechs alleged plagiarism (the word alleged looks like it should be in the tiniest of quote marks).
Unlike leftists, who all too often le…
Keep trying with the Biden joke, Mac. It’ll get funny eventually, I promise. As an effective distraction, not so much, but hilarity will certainly –if slowly — ensue.
It’s Time to Vote Ben Off the Island
IT’S TIME TO VOTE BEN OFF THE ISLAND….As I’ve mentioned, I basically don’t care very much that the Washington Post has hired a conservative political operative to write a blog for them. In fact, I sometimes wish mainstream news outlets…
Just because I’ve seen Biden comments elsewhere, let me note that if Biden’s plagiarism was viewed as relevant to his job performance, his employer could have fired him years ago. Plagiarizing a speech as a politician is bad form, but it doesn’t demonstrate a basic failing of a vital requirement for the job as plagiarism does for a writer. Domenech may be a great guy who’s nice to animals and a blast to hang out with, but if these allegations are accurate (and I see no way how they could not be, but I’ll leave the caveat in), he has no business as a writer for one of the biggest papers in the country.
SH: Just to be correct, I believe you mean the 60 Minutes “alleged fake documents.”
Not making a judgement call either way, and although I believe they were probably faked by someone unknown, I have not seen definitive proof that they were. Open to any cite of anything I haven’t seen.
Bob, I am no frequent commentator at any site I read. On RS, I had tried to confine myself to factual corrections. But the hypocrisy of their rules, which seem very open, and how they ban people for refusing to bow to the party line, was too much for me to remain silent.
Thanks Phil, I will of course follow your great wisdom. Because when I think humor… “Phil at ObiWi” is always the first thing that pops into mind!
Domenech And Plagiarism?
In the American Thinker, Rick Moran, owner of the Right Wing Nuthouse, details charges of plagiarism against Ben Domenech, the new Washington Post blogger: But what simply cannot be tolerated in any venue where the written word is revered and
“SH: Just to be correct, I believe you mean the 60 Minutes ‘alleged fake documents.'”
No I mean fake documents. You could easily go to prison in any Western country on a circumstantial case with less evidence than was amassed showing that those documents weren’t typed in the Vietnam era. You may take that as an indictment of Western standards of judgment if you want.
I’m flattered you think of me at all. Disturbed, but flattered.
Still, wheel it out one more time. I think I heard a chuckle in the back, so everyone’s primed now.
You know, I’m tempted to pull over and put a stop to this, but I’m afraid the ensuing exchange of “but he started it” are going to start sounding like my two daughters, and I don’t think I could take that right now.
So please, for the sake of my mental hygeine, knock off the snark exchange.
Biden’s plagiarism:
Kinnock (original):
Biden
The link goes on to say:
I heard him on Fresh Air recently and he sounded ok on this subject. As it happens I’m not that fond of him apart from this and would be happy to see him replaced by someone whose serious character flaw I’m unaware of.
Ignorance really is bliss, then?
Imitation is the Sincerest form of Flattery
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, plagiarism is the sincerest form of insult. The plagiarist says to the creator your thought and your effort are meaningless. I can just take them and make them my own. I am…
“and would be happy to see him replaced by someone whose serious character flaw I’m unaware of.”
Now this is interesting. It really depends on the character flaw that I’m unaware of….but of course I can’t know.
I mean, by that logic I should be a great deal more well-adjusted…
I dunno hilzoy, I think this all worked out exactly as advertised, and I think RedState.org is playing their role exactly right. Domenech was hired — everybody has been quite explicit about this — to provide a view deep inside of what is loosely (and not very accurately IMO) called “Social Conservatism.” Now I, and many other ostensible “liberals,” think social conservatives are being taken for a ride so we would call it Corporatism or CollegeRepublicanism instead. But if genuine social conservatives like Sebastian are happy then who are we to complain?
Anyway the point is the WaPo didn’t want somebody like John Cole. They wanted Ben Domenech, and Krempasky and Harris and whatever posse of nudgers and winkers persuaded Brady that Domenech was what they wanted, justifiably regarded this as quite the coup. Pop open the champagne, fellas, it’s divisiveness that gets us elected, and we’re about to reap a bumper crop. His party connections, his loose grasp of empiricism and ethics, his comfort with self-contradiction, his instinctual embrace of the IOKIYAR principle, his absolute and uncompromising no-rhetoric-too-outrageous anti-liberalism, anti-abortionism, and anti-taxism… And most of all the fact that he would piss off the “liberals.” Those are the things that sealed the contract. And lo and behold, for one brief shining moment, everybody got what they wanted. How does the old curse go? Be careful what you wish for?
BTW about that phrase “brief shining moment?” I have no idea where I first saw that but I am confident that I did not make it up, years ago when I started saying it. Is that plagiarism?
Slart, if you’ve been limiting your media exposure to people who are reputable, you’re missing pretty much the entire national discourse. Guilt-by-association has been the new blackletter law for several years now. And all I can say about the near-zero possibility of Neal Stephenson plagiarizing is that you better not stand between me and anything written that other author 😉
“No I mean fake documents.”
My last impression accords with john miller.
“You could easily go to prison in any Western country on a circumstantial case with less evidence […]”
A recent example.
To Hilzoy:
You’ve mixed up the attributions of the quotes from NRO piece with the Cox piece. Don’t know if the fault is yours or kos’s, but fix it if you want to make this sort of case.
BD’s piece should be the one with the nonsensical phrase “literally sucking the life out of the earthlings of the human.” Or maybe it would make sense if I’d seen the film.
Domenech And Plagiarism?
In the American Thinker, Rick Moran, owner of the Right Wing Nuthouse, details charges of plagiarism against Ben Domenech, the new Washington Post blogger: But what simply cannot be tolerated in any venue where the written word is revered and
genuine social conservatives like Sebastian
Apologies for the digression, but… bwah?
Sebastian has many conservative viewpoints, and many fine qualities which we all admire. But as far as being socially conservative, well… the man’s gay. Perhaps he leans socially conservative in ways of which I am not aware, but that one niggling trait would seem to make the label of “genuine social conservative” difficult to apply to him.
Domenech And Plagiarism?
In the American Thinker, Rick Moran, owner of the Right Wing Nuthouse, details charges of plagiarism against Ben Domenech, the new Washington Post blogger: But what simply cannot be tolerated in any venue where the written word is revered and
That’s a, uhh, very odd take, Catsy. Are you making a statement about SH‘s views or about the views of average social conservatives? Very very important difference.
I will not be surprised when we find out he is also being paid by this administration to TRANSCRIBE propaganda for them.
That’s a, uhh, very odd take, Catsy. Are you making a statement about SH’s views or about the views of average social conservatives? Very very important difference.
I was wondering if someone would misunderstand. I wasn’t making any kind of sweeping point, just mentioning that I find the label “social conservative” difficult to apply to anyone who is happily and unashamedly gay, and thus that sentence struck me as completely bizarre. I suppose you could take that as an observation on the nature of what it is to be a socon, a movement which has as one of its core elements a religious hostility to gays and gay rights. I’ve never considered Sebastian to be one. I have no idea what he considers himself and said so.
I certainly wasn’t attempting to make any kind of “you’re a traitor to your kind if you’re a gay Republican” crack, nor was I questioning his conservative credentials, if that’s where this is going.
Catsy: But as far as being socially conservative, well… the man’s gay. Perhaps he leans socially conservative in ways of which I am not aware, but that one niggling trait would seem to make the label of “genuine social conservative” difficult to apply to him.
No, not really. You’re assuming that all gay men must oppose the social conservative paradigm which ensures they remain second-class citizens. Sebastian Holsclaw’s outlook on this, as I believe he has explicitly stated in the past, is a perfectly standard gay social conservative attitude: “I don’t feel discriminated against because I’m gay: therefore, I don’t care what happens to other GLBT people.” (Otherwise expressed as “I don’t want equal rights, so I can’t see why anyone else should want them.”)
Rilkefan, I found calling Sebastian a social conservative jarring as well. What is the definition of “social conservative” being used? Certainly not the one I’m familiar with in modern political discourse. Does Sebastian describe himself as a social conservative?
I’m not going down this road again, Jes.
It was a sentence that struck me as completely bizarre, given what I know of SH. I commented on it. I don’t want to turn it into a big production. I’m sorry I said anything at all.
Meanwhile, some of the BenDom lunacy going on over yonder is truly pee-your-pants funny: “Ben should not resign [f]or the same reason that Helen Keller should not have stopped writing.”
Bwa.ha.ha.
At Agitprop, we suggest Ben plagiarize this …
“Sebastian Holsclaw’s outlook on this, as I believe he has explicitly stated in the past, is a perfectly standard gay social conservative attitude: ‘I don’t feel discriminated against because I’m gay: therefore, I don’t care what happens to other GLBT people.'”
Umm that isn’t my view. I have felt discriminated against. I feel that many of the methods and tactics used by other GLBT people to combat discrimination are counterproductive.
My advice to Ben can be found here
All over. He’s resigned
Catsy: It was a sentence that struck me as completely bizarre, given what I know of SH. I commented on it. I don’t want to turn it into a big production. I’m sorry I said anything at all.
Fair enough. Me too.
Aaaaand, the fat lady has sung: Domenech resigns. Nothing was said about the blog, however, so I imagine we’ll be seeing another “Red America” blogger sooner or later.
“I look forward to the reaction at redstate when Domenech admits his plagiarism.”
I’ll write it for you: “Good for Ben! His bravery in the face of endless unscrupulous attacks on his character is admirable. He’s been called a homosexual, a liar, a thief, and his family has been grossly assaulted. Ben made a regrettable mistake when he was young, and he has now forthrightly apologized for it; let’s put it behind us, and may Ben have continued success in his new position at X; I’m sure we’ll be seeing great work from him in the future!”
Slart: “Ah, guilt-by-association. I haven’t seen anyone reputable use that so casually in a while.”
What’s this in response to?
‘Post’ Blogger Ben Domenech: Kinda Screwed
So its looking like Ben Domenechs in a spot of trouble. The Wash Posts Red America blogger, and frequent target of unhinged attacks from us, has been revealed as a plagiarist (we do think its reached the point where the…
Didn’t see your comment, Ugh – sorry about the repeat.
“All over. He’s resigned.”
Oh, darn. I hoped to have at least another hour to polish his resignation speech, and the Redstate reaction.
Heh. It’s tempting to go all melodramatic and simply “rest my case” that social conservatism is not a meaningful designation any longer, but yes, I think Sebastian, (pace being gay, which I had actually forgotten at the time of commenting) is more or less a genuine social conservative.
SH, please correct me if you think I’m misrepresenting your views, but it strikes me that you consider traditional moral constraints on legal and governmental proceedings to be legitimate, independent of where those moral constraints, de facto, originate. i.e. that traditional moral constraints, be they from spiritual/religious, social, or philosophical traditions, should take precedence by default over constraints derived from more recent cultural constructs, unless a very high bar is passed.
If this doesn’t approximate your views then I apologize, and withdraw the example.
‘Post’ Blogger Ben Domenech: Kinda Screwed
Update: Yeah, Ben Domenech resigned. Right as we were publishing this post, the sunuvabitch. The Wash Posts Red America blogger, and frequent target of unhinged attacks from us, has been revealed as a plagiarist (we do think its r…
I think we can safely differentiate the WashingtonPost reaction from the 60 Minutes reaction:
“Plagiarism is perhaps the most serious offense that a writer can commit or be accused of. Washingtonpost.com will do everything in its power to verify that its news and opinion content is sourced completely and accurately at all times.
We appreciate the speed and thoroughness with which our readers and media outlets surfaced these allegations. Despite the turn this has taken, we believe this event, among other things, testifies to the positive and powerful role that the Internet can play in the the practice of journalism.”
I think it would not be ridiculous to call me a social conservative even if it did not precisely describe all of my views. No label precisely describes anyone’s views (except maybe when the label is named after the person–Stalinism???). But if you made a statistical model of ‘social conservative’ it would probably accurately describe me in most cases. I’m hesitant to go completely off on a tangent (Why suddenly be hesitant now? I don’t know). But I suspect the reluctance by some to label me a social conservative suggests a misunderstanding of how severe the average social conservative is. “Social Conservative” describes a range of views (though of course not the entire range of possible views). I suspect that many of the more left-leaning people here think only of the more extreme portion of that range when they think of a social conservative. That happens when looking on the left from the outside too.
KCinDC, I hereby charge that you were wrong, wrong, wrong about their heads not exploding. Within minutes of the resignation, all links at Redstate give me this:
Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@localhost and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
Not only did their heads explode, their site did too!
(Couldn’t resist.)
Catsy –
funny, cause Charles had just put up a post called “answers needed” stating:
The charges of plagiarism are serious business … It may be happening at this very writing, but a complete and timely response is needed by the co-founder of this site, answering fully every charge made.
Maybe that’s what happens when one editor tries to ban another.
“that” being the site explodes.
Fair enough, SH.
I would note, however, that I don’t believe it’s so much a matter of viewing a group by their most extreme traits, as by their most vocal and visible. Like it or not, social conservatism’s involvement in contemporary politics seems to be intensely concerned with what people–particularly gay people–do in their bedrooms.
I’ll let Sebastian define himself.
And I had another piece ready to go when I had to go off to get my theoretically annual haircut, and now i come back and find he’s resigned and RedState has gone down.
Hmm.
Very nicely put, Sebastian. I knew there was some reason I don’t immediately disregard anything you write…
I don’t suppose you’d be interested in writing for wapo.com? I’d sure back you as a candidate. All I ask is that you not call the blog “Red America” (because that’s just plain lame).
Sadly, No! puts the capstone on this mess congratulations Hil, you’ve made the big time.
Hilzoy,
they are going to take away your license to start a blogswarm if you take an attitude like that…
“Maybe that’s what happens when one editor tries to ban another.”
It’s the ol’ “Captain Kirk Technique.”
I’m just disappointed in myself for having last night allowed that it might take until Monday for Domenech to resign; old-media thinking on my part.
My bet is that this allows washingtonpost.com a chance at the reset button, and that they will add a “Blue America” blog to the new “Red America” hire when that happens in a couple of weeks, though I’d say the odds are only about 80-20.
Still trying to get back into Redstate to update my post, but I’m getting an “Internal Server Error”. I don’t know if it’s been edited out or not, but I’m fairly sure the post didn’t go over well.
BTW, to me this is Redstate’s darkest day. Since Ben’s name is still on the “masthead”, answers are still needed for the benefit of the site.
On another note, I hope WA Post hires another conservative blogger as soon as they are able.
Charles, I managed to briefly get in long enough to read it and the three comments to it. All three were supportive; that surprised me.
I give even money whether it’s still there when Redstate comes back up.
Charles –
Are you an editor there cause you’re not listed but the post was front paged (and not “promoted from the diaries…”).
Wash. Post Conservative Blogger Resigns Amid Plagiarism Allegations
The liberal blogosphere went into full attack mode this week when the Washington Post hired conservative, partisan blogger Ben Domenech to write a blog for its online website. Bloggers uncovered numerous instances in which the 24 year old Domenech appe…
Update: Some conservatives write in to say that Ben Domenech is not the true face of Right Blogostan. I wish that were so. But sadly, he is its face today.
Are you an editor there cause you’re not listed but the post was front paged
I’m an editor with front-page privileges, Ugh. Last month (or was it two months ago?), I asked who I had to kill or screw to get my name up with the rest of the crew, and was told that I would be included after the next site makeover.
Wash. Post Conservative Blogger Resigns Amid Plagiarism Allegations
The liberal blogosphere went into full attack mode this week when the Washington Post hired conservative, partisan blogger Ben Domenech to write a blog for its online website. Bloggers uncovered numerous instances in which the 24 year old Domenech appe…
Maybe that will be today…
Who gets to speak for “the left,” anyway? I’d like to send a memo.
I believe that’s Norbizness.
Wash. Post Conservative Blogger Resigns Amid Plagiarism Allegations
The liberal blogosphere went into full attack mode this week when the Washington Post hired conservative, partisan blogger Ben Domenech to write a blog for its online website. Bloggers uncovered numerous instances in which the 24 year old Domenech appe…
Well, I just made it onto RedState: they headed the frontpage with an apology for the downtime – overload (whatta surprise) – but it looks like the main reaction still remains to go up. Probably still need some more time to sandblast the egg off their faces. My guess is they’ll go in for serious wailing-and-gnashing, followed an equally serious flood of blame-shifting – Heh – couldn’t happen to a nicer blog.
“I give even money whether it’s still there when Redstate comes back up.”
Umm, there are competent people over there, I’m sure they realize they get more from their association with CB than v.v.
Atrios gets a bit vicious for me at times, but this is funny.
I still get ‘server error’ messages. However, I did use a url from my history to get into one of their stories.
Sadly No: heh heh.
“I give even money whether it’s still there when Redstate comes back up.”
I’d guess it will be; the jig is up. As I said, I’m just sorry we didn’t have the weekend for more people to walk out on that limb. Though some will continue to explain how plagiarism is no big thing. Fine, good, go on record with that opinion, guys. Enjoy.
We live in fast times. I just started reading this story and it’s already over.
Wash. Post Conservative Blogger Resigns Amid Plagiarism Allegations
The liberal blogosphere went into full attack mode this week when the Washington Post hired conservative, partisan blogger Ben Domenech to write a blog for its online website. Bloggers uncovered numerous instances in which the 24 year old Domenech appe…
Wash. Post Conservative Blogger Resigns Amid Plagiarism Allegations
The liberal blogosphere went into full attack mode this week when the Washington Post hired conservative, partisan blogger Ben Domenech to write a blog for its online website. Bloggers uncovered numerous instances in which the 24 year old Domenech appe…
Upthread a ways, someone wrote: As you would say, “lighten up Francis”, but if you think it out of line Slart, then I happily apologize.
May I assume that the reference is to the movie “Stripes” and not to me?
It’s a beautiful day here in SoCal, and I don’t want to get cranky.
It’s unclear but I think von may have just been banned at redstate.
(note link may not work due to their server problems).
Dead to rights. Shame on him, and I’m glad for whatever part the left end of the blogosphere played in tripping him up. I don’t like people poisoning the information stream no matter what side they’re coming from.
All praise to Charles for taking a principled stand at RedState.
One might think that the necessity of doing so would be obvious, but glancing at the comments and posts over there, the obvious is not always obvious to everyone.
And it’s always harder to take a stand when your friends are on the other side.
It’s unclear but I think von may have just been banned at redstate.
Or, he’s been sent Down to the Countryside.
Fatherless Boys, Rathergate, and Davids
Im out the door and will be on the Treo for most of the day. While Im gone, turn your attention to these book reviews:
Review of An Army of Davids in the context of Rathergate at the CBS PublicEye blog.
Review of Rais…
Augustine speaks….
Domenech has the new lead post.
And links to Hilzoy.
Of the O’Rourke piece:
If so (and I’m going to tentatively assume that someone wouldn’t lie about something so verifiable by others), it should have been labeled.
HOW PATHETIC. The man has NO integrity. He’s busted and he won’t admit he’s busted.
I can’t wait for his former editors, and P.J. O’Rourke, to go on the record.
Shorter Ben Domenech:
“Whatever I may or may not have done re plagiarizing stuff, it wasn’t really my fault, and even if it was, liberals and leftists are still worse, and it’s still all their doing anyway – and conservatives still can’t get a break in the media”
Feh. Interesting to note, though, that he links to just one blog re the criticism of his appointment: (Hint: its name rhymes with “Obsidian Wings”) – mainly due, he graciously notes, to their omission of charges of incestuous activity in the critiques of his plagiarism. Way to go, hilzoy!
Most of the rest of it falls under this:
We all make mistakes. “Sloppy”? You decide.
Charles,
Good on you.
Ben Domenech Resigns
Ive held off writing about Ben Domenech and the alleged charges of plagerism that are being directed at him. I like to have all the facts, so I researched and read blogs from Michelle Malkin to Atrios. They ran the gamut but they all had one …
I have to hand it to Domenech–he’s constructed a web of BS in his new post that is sure to give his supporters the out they need to claim it was all a misunderstanding abetted by those nasty libruls. As BS mea culpas go, it’s art. I mean, read over the way he explains away each instance of plagiarism–it’s either the fault of unprincipled editors, his own work in two different places, or something for which he had permission. Art, I tell you!
Maybe he has some talent after all.
Self-pity, irrelevancies, contorted explanations for “several” (but not all) incidents, using youth as a defense, and no apology or acceptance of responsibility — should I really have expected more?
Backing up slightly: “Before that, insertions had been routinely made in my copy, which I did not question.”
That’s a problem. I’ve never stood for such a thing, under any circumstances, no matter how amateur, no matter how casual.
I was, not all that long in the past, asked to be a co-blogger at a well-known group blog with an established readership vastly larger than that of my own blog. I found this happening to my posts. I didn’t immediately quit, but I immediately, within five minutes of seeing it happened, screamed to the founder and primary editor of the site, who was the one inserting lines and rewriting what I’d written so it was more to his taste while leaving my name on it and leaving no note that he’d changed what I’d written. I told him I wouldn’t stand for it; he could ask to see my posts in advance and ask for changes, if he liked, but not a word of mine was to be changed unless I approved first.
I more recently was asked to do some guest blogging for pay at another blog; I chose to use a pseudonym, and laid down the above conditions at greater length and greater emphasis.
Anyone who doesn’t do this deserves what happens. End of story in my book.
Oh, and I said the same things when I was having stuff published in other people’s fanzines when I was fricking 14 years old and on; as I said before, you can’t claim the benefits of starting young and then plead that you deserve to get off for having been young when you did something stupid; pick one.
Hm, I thought I had been banned from RedState a while back, but apparently they’re asleep at the History Eraser Button.
I would never ask anyone to click on an RS link, so here’s my snark:
Way to go, Ben! By: Anderson
I knew you would step up and take responsibility for your actions, rather than blame others without admitting any misdeeds yourself. Lefties can always pretend nothing’s their fault and pass the buck, but if “conservative” means anything ethically, surely it means unflinching honesty and willingness to confront our own errors.
I doubt this will fly under the radar, but if that German kid could land in Red Square, maybe I can sneak into RedState …
Weren’t those pieces which he alleges were tampered with listed on his resume? Can anyone back me up on this?
Because if so, that alone makes his defense ridiculous. Who would put pieces they know have plagiarized elements on their CV?
“The truth is, no conservative could write for the Post without being subject to the gauntlet of the liberal attack machine.”
Gantlet, Ben. Gantlet.
If the WaPo or any other publications wants to examine my public writings since age 12, they’re welcome to do so. They’ll find some stupid stuff, and in early days, particularly, much badly written stuff. I’ll take the job (if the hours are low enough for me to be able to keep them at my present level of not-such-great health, which is a huge factor, alas), and welcome the scrutiny.
Thomas, from the Mea Culpa thread:
CB, von – do you really want to be associated with this?
I doubt this will fly under the radar, but if that German kid could land in Red Square, maybe I can sneak into RedState .
I specifically noticed that comment and thought to myself, “that’s gotta be a lefty making a subtle but brilliant dig at Domenech’s completely shameless blame-shifting in this post.”
If I noticed it, count on the Redstaters noticing it, particularly since Domenech linked to this very thread in that post.
Gantlet, Ben. Gantlet.
American Heritage allows both, Gary. As does the Shorter OED.
Thomas, from the Mea Culpa thread
I saw that myself, and thought about pointing it out, but figured I’ve highlighted enough written filth for one day, and already need a shower.
They are not my countrymen; they are animals who happen to walk upright and make noises that approximate speech. They are below human.
GOOD. LORD.
But you’re so much *smarter*, Catsy!
Ben should try the ‘Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote’ defense. Though his writing may coincide, word for word, with the work of others it is actually an achievement superior to all the originals. He was able to create in his mind the exact conditions necessary to faithfully replicate all the articles he is accused of plagiarizing, as if each were being written for the first time. Seems as plausible as any other excuse.
My experience of publishing is limited, but I’d be surprised if there are many publications, especially weekly or daily ones, where an ordinary writer could impose such restrictions and be published. Were you actually making a living as a writer, Gary?
f one bothers to read it, I believe it stands as a welcome addition to the opinion debate.
“And if one doesn’t, then I don’t!”
The Left has also accused me of foisting Sen. Frist quotes and some descriptive material from the Washington Post for a New York Press article on the Capitol Shooter.
I think you mean “hoisting.”
Whatta maroon. This guy is supposed to be some great writer? Spare me.
It’s Time to Vote Ben Off the Island
IT’S TIME TO VOTE BEN OFF THE ISLAND….As I’ve mentioned, I basically don’t care very much that the Washington Post has hired a conservative political operative to write a blog for them. In fact, I sometimes wish mainstream news outlets…
“Because if so, that alone makes his defense ridiculous. Who would put pieces they know have plagiarized elements on their CV?”
I certainly haven’t seen Domenech’s resume (is it still “risumi”?; I don’t keep up with the fashions), but I find the idea that he listed all the individual pieces he’s ever had published to be extremely unlikely.
Many Fundamentalist Mormons practicing polygamy and having sex with under age women are social conservatives.
Any depraved degenerate can claim to be a social conservative.
Have you been to Redstate and Daily Pundit?
Social conservatives believe The Law is reserved for others.
“BTW, to me this is Redstate’s darkest day. Since Ben’s name is still on the “masthead”, answers are still needed for the benefit of the site.
On another note, I hope WA Post hires another conservative blogger as soon as they are able.”
Ditto. Partisan snark is the name of the game, and I hold none of what Domenech said in his apologia against him. Believe it or not, my sincere sympathies go to Ben Domenech and his friends at RedState. There has been real hurt and damage done today, and none was inflicted on me. Deserved or undeserved, the pain is real. And they be humans over there. I regret this, if Domenech were to be damaged, I would have preferred it to have been with the usual weapons partisans allow each other.
I’ll get back to hating them all Monday. Let them grieve and vent in peace.
Ah, they waxed it. The History Eraser Button still works.
I wonder which sentiment I expressed that was inconsistent with true conservative principles?
Wash. Post Conservative Blogger Resigns Amid Plagiarism Allegations
The liberal blogosphere went into full attack mode this week when the Washington Post hired conservative, partisan blogger Ben Domenech to write a blog for its online website. Bloggers uncovered numerous instances in which the 24 year old Domenech appe…
I wonder how many emails are wending their way to P.J. O’Rourke at this minute.
I uspect the liberal use of invective in his explanation just means he knows his audience better at redstate.
Great comment, bob.
A pain in the blogside
A funny thing happened when the MSM tried to suck up to the right wing blogosphere…
Uh-oh.
A MESSAGE TO OUR READERS [The Editors]
As the previous links mention, at least one of the pieces Ben Domenech is accused of having plagiarized was a movie review for National Review Online. A side-by-side comparison to another review of the same film speaks for itself. There is no excuse for plagiarism and we apologize to our readers and to Steve Murray of the Cox News Service from whose piece the language was lifted. With some evidence of possible problems with other pieces, we’re also looking into other articles he wrote for NRO.
“Were you actually making a living as a writer, Gary?”
Nope. Didn’t say I was.
If one is writing for a publication with a professional copyeditor (which I have done — been a professional copyeditor, that is), certainly one expects professional copy-editing type changes; that’s not what I was talking about.
Ben Domenech “Resigns”
The Red America blog post for the day is an announcement by Executive Editor Jim Brady, that Domenech has “resigned”. Earlier this morning, I wrote, tongue-in-cheek that “…but let’s say that he is [a plagarist]–plagarizers can’t have opinions?” Well…
I’d like to see exactly where any liberal blog said they’d like to rape Ben’s sister. If some unhinged shithead emailed that to Ben, it’s one thing. But he linked here, saying it was the only blog that didn’t advocate the raping of his sister. Is he hallucinating, or did I miss something?
Gary. my point was only that writing for someone’s zine might be rather different from writing for a magazine or newpaper. I have also been a professional copyeditor, but only for books and journals. My understanding is that copyeditors for newspapers and magazines often make significantly more changes without the authors having any chance to see them before the article appears in print. One hopes that the editing doesn’t introduce errors, but copyeditors are human as well and not all are as skilled as you and I are.
Ben Domenech “Resigns”
The Red America blog post for the day is an announcement by Executive Editor Jim Brady, that Domenech has “resigned”. Earlier this morning, I wrote, tongue-in-cheek that “…but let’s say that he is [a plagarist]–plagarizers can’t have opinions?” Well…
“I don’t suppose you’d be interested in writing for wapo.com? I’d sure back you as a candidate.”
Lol. I’d love to. I think. That would be fun though I wouldn’t want to poach on Sullivan’s “gay conservative” rights too much. 🙂
dn’t wnt t rp Bn’s sstr. Bt f sh ws ht, wldn’t mnd plyng hr wth lchl s sh’d lwr hr nhbtns nd gv BJ. Thn jst bfr blw m ld, ‘d sht, “Chmcl chnc! Chmcl chnc!” Crtnsts ht tht.
[Disemvowelled by The Management (hlzy)]
Unsurprisingly, many of the Redstaters are Slow:
They evidentally read this part of Domenech’s post:
And didn’t understand that this means “and I was fired, but allowed to say I ‘resigned.'”
Thinking he had a choice: nice continued wishful thinking.
Right Wing Blog Etiquette
This blog is coming up on it’s second anniversary. I can’t speak for binky or armand, but I got into blogging as a way of expanding the circle of people to argue and debate with. I had read blogs for…
Charles,
A little late, but I applaud you.
“But he linked here, saying it was the only blog that didn’t advocate the raping of his sister. Is he hallucinating, or did I miss something?”
I took that as slight exaggeration for effect, not a literal statement. And I don’t doubt that he’s had endless illegitimate invective on innumerable blog comments, blog posts, and e-mails, given the visibility of all this.
Of course, live by invective, die by invective, even if you yourself never went quite that far. You communist.
Walter Concrete, that’s really not nice. And though it might be a lesser charge, it still falls under the category of rape.
Unsurprisingly, many of the Redstaters are Slow
I thought that comment was actually a much subtler “under the radar” attempt than mine. But at some point it’s all too John LeCarre.
Walter, meet Jeff Goldstein. Jeff, meet Walter Concrete.
You two should hook up.
Jckmrmn <>nd thgh t mght b lssr chrg, t stll flls ndr th ctgr f rp. N t dsn’t, nlss hs sstr s blw th stttr g. ‘m vr ptnt.
[Disemvowelled by The Management (hlzy)]
“My understanding is that copyeditors for newspapers and magazines often make significantly more changes without the authors having any chance to see them before the article appears in print.”
Sure, and as I said, I wasn’t talking about that sort of circumstance and changes. I’m sorry that I wasn’t clear about that. But the topic wasn’t legitimate copyed changes for clarity.
Speaking of which, “foisting” makes sense in that context, though it should be “on” something, “hoisting” doesn’t make any sense at all, and, yes, “gauntlet” can be used — almost any usage can be pointed to as descriptively in use — but “gantlet” is the more apt choice.
No it doesn’t, unless his sister is below the statutory age.
I’m very patient.
This is my second GOOD. LORD. of the day.
Someone take Walter to the woodshed, please.
I completely agree about the need to respect moral values. If these charges are as well-founded as they seem to be, it will be interesting to see whether Ben Domenech has the guts to apply these principles to his own case, or whether he deploys morality only against other people.
Gosh, that’s awfully charitable.
Breathtakingly naive may be more accurate.
The infamous Ben Domenech is a Biblical literalist. Do you really need to ask whether he is capable of applying reason or morality consistently?
Please educate yourself about the psychopathology of loud-mouthed fundamentalists like Ben Domenech.
Their behavior is as predictable as night follows day.
Spartikus
This is my second GOOD. LORD. of the day.
Someone take Walter to the woodshed, please.
Lighten up, Sparty.
Jeez, that Redstate thread is Best. Comedy. Evah.
“I don’t really know what I am saying here….”
Walter: please read the posting rules. Please. And stop it. Further suggestions along these lines will get you banned.
If any of the other members of the HiveMind (or anyone else) have a view on whether these comments should be deleted, just say so.
Seconded. I want no common cause with that sort of invective.
Walter Concrete, try reading the posting rules.
Old Usenet custom is that it’s wise to read a newsgroup/site for a week, or at least a few days to absorb the local customs and ambience; that custom has unfortunately not made its way far into the blogosphere, but we’d all be better off if it had.
ObWi is a site whose point is to be open to bloggers of all political persuasions, and where courtesy is a value, even if it’s often honored more in the breach than in the observance.
What makes somebody think that sort of comment is okay?
I’m not sure it’s right to delete it, though.
“What makes somebody think that sort of comment is okay?”
Same thinking as in that Redstate comment about the Other Side being just animals, etc. Since the Other is inhuman, one can say anything like that, and it’s all just in good fun, or deserved, or whatever.
This is why I don’t, as a rule, read Redstate, Kos, or the comments of pretty much any blog that’s highly popular; lowest common denominator territory.
Jackmormon: that’s the reason I hadn’t: I don’t want to go in for some sort of Stalinist retouching, etc. On the other hand, I abhor that sort of thing. — It’s the way I used to feel when people said stuff about Chelsea Clinton: there’s an actual person who’s being talked about here.
And I have no idea at all what would make someone think that was OK. — I had the same puzzlement about, e.g., a bumper sticker I saw once that said, simply, F*** You Too! — Huh? Who are these people?
Well, I had to get something in and it’s too late for Lobachevsky.
Same thinking as in that Redstate comment about the Other Side being just animals, etc.
Judging by Thomas’s followup to Catsy, he’s not referring to the entire left half of the country — he’s using the term roughly the way people here often use the term “Right”, i.e. to mean the most vocal, extreme, and/or mean-spirited representatives of that political hemisphere.
ral, what does Lobachevsky have to do with this? He was just doing “research”.
hilzoy, cnsdr dsmvwlmnt.
Walter, your mouth is talking. You might want to look to that. Your statement not only dumb, it was misogynistic and creepy. Beyond that, it wasn’t funny, it shows you to be an immature [deleted], and basically, unfortunately, proves Ben’s point–about you, at least. In short, shut the [deleted] up.
rilkefan: YES!! Thanks. Will do, pronto.
Wash. Post Conservative Blogger Resigns Amid Plagiarism Allegations
The liberal blogosphere went into full attack mode this week when the Washington Post hired conservative, partisan blogger Ben Domenech to write a blog for its online website. Bloggers uncovered numerous instances in which the 24 year old Domenech appe…
And I’m sorry that one of my first posts here was discourteous.
Please read the posting rules, RL. Thanks.
I’m editing your post for profanity; better that than deletion, methinks.
Sorry, hilzoy. You now have the con.
Slarti: what’s the con?
The controls. To the blog. For dsmvwllmnt, if you so choose.
Ah, forget it. It always sounds so much more commanding when Captain Picard says it.
I was logged in as Moe, is what I’m trying to say, and I dunno if Typepad is schizoid enough to let us both be logged in as Moe.
Proof positive that I’m not as funny as I think I am: I have to explain myself a lot.
“Captain Picard says it.”
Qu’est-ce qu’il dit? Vraiment?
Ah, Slarti, but since I was the one who wrote this post, I can edit stuff without even being Moe. So I didn’t trip over you.
Good to know that it wasn’t con as in: pro and con, con job, or any of the other cons that leapt to mind and were dismissed as making no sense whatsoever.
Good to know I was making no sense in a completely unpredictable way, at least.
Douthat for Red American!
Now that racist/Washington Post blogger/serial plagiarist Ben Domenech has resigned from his post as the Washington Post’s sap to the right, Ezra recommends Ross Douthat as his replacement. I can’t agree more. The way I look at it, some conservatives
On the other hand, I abhor that sort of thing. — It’s the way I used to feel when people said stuff about Chelsea Clinton: there’s an actual person who’s being talked about here.
Hmmm. So what standards did our righteous subject du jour Ben Domenech apply when he crafted his own rhetoric?
Pretty darn low. And he was serious.
I’m not — obviously.
Let’s see, who else abused rhetoric and lowered the standards of our country’s discourse a great many times over the past 8 years? How about George Bush? Remember him? Ben’s idol?
George was serious too. Ask the thousands of Iraqis who lost family members or limbs to US bombs.
Please don’t sit and slap yourselves on the back congratulating yourself on how “civil” you all are. Anyone who isn’t out there calling out scumbags like Ben Domenech and his ignoble heroes doesn’t deserve my respect, however “civil” they pretend to be.
Rumblelizard
Beyond that, it wasn’t funny, it shows you to be an immature [deleted], and basically, unfortunately, proves Ben’s point
Ben Domenech is an fundamentalist moron. He doesn’t have a “point” to prove.
People like me who think Ben is the lowest form of human scum in America today have good reasons to feel the way the do.
Contrast with people like Ben who feel the way they do because their preachers tell them how to feel.
Religious fundamentalism is a disease which affects nations. Ben is just the latest in a long list of visible symptoms.
Not to contribute to the incivility, but someone who ‘jokes’ about rape (yes, rape, full f**king stop – getting someone intentionally drunk with the motive of taking advantage of them sexually is rape) doesn’t deserve my respect, however “righteous” they claim to be.
Misogynists are not on my side, civil or otherwise.
matttbastard speaks for me.
Your quarrel is with Ben, Walter. Leave his sister out of it.
And me. See? Walter’s a uniter, not a divider.
Douthat for Red American!
Now that racist/Washington Post blogger/serial plagiarist Ben Domenech has resigned from his post as the Washington Post’s sap to the right, Ezra recommendsRoss Douthat as his replacement. I can’t agree more. The way I look at it, some conservatives (like
Me 2.
I don’t really see many people on this thread rallying to the defense of Ben Domenech, or even being in any way ambivalent. They just managed to express their disapproval without mentioning raping his sister. Difficult, I know, but somehow they managed.
Just wanted to post this as it was at Atrios, from one of Domenech’s former editors at W&M:
Hi —
This all seems to have happened really fast. I hadn’t really checked the news til midday today when I saw all of this happened. It might be kind of moot now, but I was Domenech’s editor at The Flat Hat when he was writing the reviews. Four people, including me, would have handled his copy, the others being my assistant section editor, the managing editor and the editor.
This should seem obvious, but no one on the editorial staff was going into Salon (or wherever) and pasting whole sections into his reviews. We were more concerned about getting the paper done so we could get home at 2 in the morning instead of 5. We may have put additional words in the story, but it would never have been completely foreign content. It was just editing.
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_03_19_atrios_archive.html#114323067041235652
He should’ve just confessed. This is going to take an ugly turn if more former associates come forward to defend their own integrity.
Walter, you completely miss my point. You can call out BD all you like, you can call him whatever you like. However, his sister has nothing to do with it.
My point was that if you use misogynistic constructions like the one you did, it makes you look like a creep. It makes you look like the type who would fantasize about expressing his rage at one person by sexually degrading and humiliating another person, a woman, who had nothing to do with the situation at all.
It reflects badly on you rather than on the subject of your ire. It shows that you need to check yourself and figure out why you seem to think that being misogynistic is funny, or appropriate.
Are you getting it, or do I need to explain further?
Yeah, well, comments like Concrete’s are why I stopped reading Kos and Atrios comments. Eliminationist rhetoric is inherently disturbing to me, regardless of ideological grounding.
The Washington Post got well and truly burned in this incident. My question: Did they learn a lesson? My answer: Probably not. Expect right-wing pandering mode to continue.
“Kos and Atrios comments.”
I don’t get the Kos part (I don’t read Atrios’s comments) – the commentariat is vigorous, but hate speech gets suppressed quickly.
Since people are playing the ditto game, let me belatedly add my voice to those saying good on Charles for taking an iconoclastic stand over at RedState.
PS: PS: <3 the ObWi big tent.
Slartibartfast, for some reason, that word is spelled “conn”.
Perhaps ‘eliminationist’ is a bit over the top re: Kos, but the contentious relationship with feminists/pro-choice absolutists – culminating in last year’s so-called ‘pie fight’ – turned me off the site.
Essentially telling women to shut up, smile and look pretty while the menfolk decide what’s ‘important’ didn’t exactly endear me to the Kossack commetariat.
WaPo Conservative Blogger Resigns Amid Plagiarism Accusations
And from what it looks like, more than accusations. Here’s the WaPo announcement of Ben Domenech’s resignation. One thing that bothers me is that they say “…Plagiarism is perhaps the most serious offense that a writer can commit or be…
Once upon a time, I knew that.
“I’m editing your post for profanity; better that than deletion, methinks.”
See, the problem with that is that it’s not in any way clear that an editor changed things; the only possible way to know that is to read other comments. This is exactly why that’s a bad practice, in my view.
I read that comment, and thought “well done.” Now it turns out I was wrong, that what was posted by the commenter wasn’t posted by the commenter. What if I’d not been someone who happened to read further?
I guess it’s perhaps clearer what are and are not good editing practices with more experience as an editor.
And if I ever lose control, please delete my entire comment and if you want to ask me to rewrite it, that’s fine. Do not change my words without attribution. If you ever want me to comment here again.
Gary: since I disemvowelled the comments in question before Slarti could get to them, there’s no reason to assume that he wouldn’t have noted what he did.
By the way: I am sad to say that we are about to break our all-time one day visits record. The previous record was somewhere around where we are now (I don’t actually keep track of these things, but some things just drive a girl to look at Sitemeter), on the first day after the Terri Schiavo post. That this, of all things, should lead to more hits is sad. I wish it had happened about, say, my post on Quarantine.
Walter: “Anyone who isn’t out there calling out scumbags like Ben Domenech and his ignoble heroes doesn’t deserve my respect, however ‘civil’ they pretend to be.”
You’re entitled to your opinion. And you’re entitled to express it as you wish, at your own blog, and to set the rules for your own blog.
Meanwhile, there are rules for this blog. I’m just another commenter, just like yourself, but do keep in mind that if you repeatedly violate the rules, you’ll be banned.
And most people will observe that you apparently believe you’re one of those Special People who believes that rules are for other people, and apparently that ends justify means, and that two wrongs make a right, and all the other excuses there are for being particularly self-righteous; to be sure, those are all not unpopular views.
But slapping yourself on your own back for self-considered bravery might possibly be unbecoming, and you’re not exactly Courageously Speaking Truth To Power when addressing people here.
I’d thought that the [deleted] in brackets might have been a dead giveaway. So as to avoid offending Gary, though, I shall endeavor to edit profanity out in a way that’s less confusing.
Gary, if you’ve got any hints to that effect, please share.
(yes, rape, full f**king stop – getting someone intentionally drunk with the motive of taking advantage of them sexually is rape)
Is this “civil discourse”? Let’s ignore the potty mouth for a moment and ask a simple question: is the author trying to be honest?
The answer: clear no.
News flash: buying someone a drink in the hopes that their inhibitions will be lowered (a well-known effect of alcohol) so that the person will be more inclined to engage in sexual relations with you is not rape.
And women and men all across the United States are grateful of that fact.
As for this:
It makes you look like the type who would fantasize about expressing his rage at one person by sexually degrading and humiliating another person, a woman, who had nothing to do with the situation at all
Let me remind you that I did not bring Ben’s sister into this discussion.
Do you remember who did?
hilzoy
They just managed to express their disapproval without mentioning raping his sister. Difficult, I know, but somehow they managed.
Oh, the irony.
Glad I could help y’all see just how depraved and sick our boy Ben really is.
Why is it that the people most offended by extremists are so…
…extreme?
Look, Walter, you’re grossing me out, and I have to get offline now, so I’m not going to reply any further than to say that “plying her with alcohol” and “buying her a drink” are very different in tone and criminal intention. If we see you around these parts again, I hope you have congenial and substantive things to say.
“My question: Did they learn a lesson? My answer: Probably not.”
I think Jim Brady’s statement to Kurtz, which I posted in the other thread, suggests at least a bit of otherwise, though we’ll see. But he said clearly that they intended to look for someone with more “traditional journalistic background.” Though it was Domenech’s journalism, not his blogging, that got him into trouble here.
I’ve said I think it would be wise to have a “Blue America” blogger who is a partisan to go with a “Red America” partisan, but it’s possible they’ll just pull back from having people be clearly partisan; I’m not sure that’s the best lesson, altogether.
“Gary: since I disemvowelled the comments in question before Slarti could get to them, there’s no reason to assume that he wouldn’t have noted what he did.”
Huh?
Oh, cripes, they’ve been changed again. Well, at least this time the editing has been attributed, which makes a huge difference.
I still don’t understand the above comment, though. Slart added words and removed words on someone’s blog with no attribution whatever that an editor had done so. I’ve, myself, often written comments in which I’ve said things like “I think that’s [DELETED] awesome.” I’ve written such comments on this blog a number of times.
“I’d thought that the [deleted] in brackets might have been a dead giveaway.”
Absolutely not. As it happens, there are bracket keys on my own [deleted] keyboard.
See, I guess you edited the above paragraph. It’s a dead giveaway that you did that, right?
No. You didn’t write [deleted by blog-owner] or [deleted by Slartibartfast] or [DELETED — editor], and even if you had, we still couldn’t tell the commenter hadn’t been making a joke.
Absent using a special font only available to blogowners, or some other graphic tool only available to a blogowner, text is text is text. And attributions are necessary if one is going to edit someone else’s words, and expect it to be clear that only one of the site-owners made those changes.
Otherwise you’re expecting people to be mind-readers.
Slartibartfast, it’s possible that Gary thought that you had changed RL’s comment to read “And I’m sorry that one of my first posts here was discourteous.” I only mention that because your comment about editing comes right after that one, and somehow the first time I read it (when reloading after reading RL’s offensive comment), I thought for a moment that that’s what had happened.
Walter: Please don’t sit and slap yourselves on the back congratulating yourself on how “civil” you all are.
I’m late to this party, but who is this unpleasant person, and why is he still here? As this whole situation seems to be bringing a lot of the worst out in people of both left and the right (I’ve been over to RedState for the first time in months, and it’s way worse than usual), it makes me especially ill when someone supposedly on my side of the political fence starts to spray on the furniture.
Then again…
I’m not going to reply any further than to say that “plying her with alcohol” and “buying her a drink” are very different in tone and criminal intention.
Have you considered working in Washington DC? You’d make an excellent lawyer for corrupt politicians.
doubplusungood
it makes me especially ill when someone supposedly on my side of the political fence starts to spray on the furniture.
Who was the first to bring up Ben’s sister?
Anyone remember?
“Slart added words and removed words on someone’s blog with no attribution whatever that an editor had done so.”
That should have been “blog comment,” not “blog.” Sorry.
As I said anyway, but to respond directly, absent using some graphic device not available to mere commenters, I don’t know that there’s any absolutely clear way, thought if you at least sign and attribute changes, you’re at least indicating that’s who made them, although there’s nothing stopping any commenter from acheiving the same effect.
It’s because I don’t know of any way for you to make changes that are clearly changes made by you — absent stuff about the software here I don’t know about that would allow for graphic uniqueness — that it’s clearly a bad practice, in my view.
For the record, I don’t think much of Jeff Goldstein’s practice of breaking into other people’s comments to respond to them, either, although that’s a lesser offense, and it’s again something I concluded when I was 12 and saw fanzine editors doing it by abusing their privilege of being the person typing the letter-writer’s letter of comment onto the mimeo stencil/ditto master.
Basically speaking, just because one has the power to change the words of others doesn’t mean one should use it. The most basic lesson of being an editor is knowing when not to edit.
Mind, of course I think you had nothing but good intentions, Slart. I think you generally have [DELETED] good intentions.
🙂
I’ve said I think it would be wise to have a “Blue America” blogger who is a partisan to go with a “Red America” partisan, but it’s possible they’ll just pull back from having people be clearly partisan; I’m not sure that’s the best lesson, altogether.
How about more journalists who report the facts and draw reasonable conclusions from them, instead of hacks trying to spin bullcrap to the rubes?
Remember truth and honesty?
Bonehead Brady forgot those values when he hired Ben Domenech, who was on the record as saying something truly bizarre: that he believed that a myth about the creation of Salmonella was literally true and that “evolution … is a crock.”
People who say such things — and profess to be educated about the subject of which they are speaking — are liars of a particularly vile sort.
Brady was unable to recognize this aspect of Ben Domenech’s deranged personality.
Brady isn’t alone.
It’s time to wake up, folks. Playtime is over.
Spidey-sense tingling……
Who was the first to bring up Ben’s sister?
On this website? Rumblefish, with this comment:
I’d like to see exactly where any liberal blog said they’d like to rape Ben’s sister.
On other websites? Well, Rumblefish asked a question which hasn’t been answered.
Walter: Who was the first to bring up Ben’s sister?
Actually, Walter, that has nothing to with that, at least as far as I’m concerned. It has to do with your unpleasant attitude and rudeness about the posters here, and you snarky attitude since then that degrads discussion.
The admins here of both the left and right are both tolerate and kind regarding newcomers who are ignorant of the posting culture here and think that they are allowed to spray on the furniture until being gently corrected.
Some of the rest of us may be a bit less tolerant, and would like to protect our small bit of political reasonableness in this wild a wooly web. I think this conversation would be more fruitful if you withdrew from it, and went somewhere that was less inclined toward discourse and more toward being a verbal mosh pit.
Sorry, “Rumblelizard”.
Let me remind you that I did not bring Ben’s sister into this discussion.
Do you remember who did?
I brought Ben’s sister into this conversation, Walter. I was asking where exactly the people fantasizing about raping his sister were that he spoke of in his post, because I hadn’t seen them anywhere. I actually thought that as people, lefties (and indeed, moderates) would realize how very far out of bounds and disgusting that kind of rhetoric would be. I thought that until you showed up, that is.
Again, check yourself and figure out why exactly it is that you think this type of misogynistic posturing is appropriate.
And I will apologize again for using cuss words in a cuss-free zone. I was unaware that this site was cuss-free, but in my defense, I have to say that Walter’s comments kind of hit one of my main cuss buttons. The site’s administrators were totally within their rights, and I was in the wrong. Won’t happen again.
Sorry, “Rumblelizard”.
I didn’t. I’m referring to a comment that now no longer exists as such. And look how much less confused the discussion is as a result!
Walter: “How about more journalists who report the facts and draw reasonable conclusions from them, instead of hacks trying to spin bullcrap to the rubes?”
I think opinion columns and blogs are just fine.
“It’s time to wake up, folks. Playtime is over.”
Gee, I’m sure you’re quite familiar with the views of regular commenters here, and thus know that you are bringing unique and never-considered insights to the masses here. Thanks for that.
I guess I should assume that you are as familiar with Domenech’s ouevre as you are with that of commenters here, and are those sufficiently acquainted with him to pronounce him “deranged” from a qualified standpoint.
Way to make folks here almost defensive of him. Never under-state where over-statement is available.
“And I will apologize again for using cuss words in a cuss-free zone. I was unaware that this site was cuss-free….”
No worries, I say, again speaking for myself (as I am wont to do); anyone with experience in group or online fora knows the difference between someone who shows up and makes an innocent mistake and instantly apologizes when it’s pointed out, and someone who shows up, makes a mistake, and instantly starts explaining why they were perfectly justified and it’s all everybody else’s fault.
The dynamics are classic; these are two classic examples, so far. (Walter still has time to make up for his initial charm and warmth, but there’s something of a window there in which first impressions are made and then tend to solidify.)
Just wanted to clarify my post of 4:44…
Charles,
My applause was late, not your principled stand at RS. Sorry for any perceived slight, you have gained a great deal of respect in my eyes.
Conservative Weblogger Doesn’t Last a Week
Ben Domenech didn’t last a week as a weblogger for washingtonpost.com. It wasn’t the bile-spewing Left or Intelligent Design critics…
DNFTT [and a threadjack]:
that said, i strongly recommend that those who wish to stay out of prison NOT get their target of affection so intoxicated as to allow that person to raise a claim that the sex was not consensual.
one Mr. Haidl is the most recent poster boy for the problems which can arise from using voluntary intoxication as a defense to rape charges.
[this is not legal advice. go consult the Penal Code of your own state to determine the scope and nature of intoxication defenses.]
[back on thread, i utterly condemn anyone who wishes physical violence on a political opponent and/or his family.]
Who was the first to bring up Ben’s sister?
The answer: Ben.
Ben Domenech let everyone know about the imaginary raping of his sister.
Ben did this while explaining to the world why he was “resigning” from his cushy job, in spite of the allegedly convincing nature of “some” of the “arguments” he presented to his bosses.
My comment here was a response to Ben’s provocation and, in my opinion, a reasonable one.
You see, Ben likes to pretend that the world is divided between Jesus lovin’ “conservatives” like himself and amoral “leftists” who want to see his sister raped. When someone tells Ben they want to take a poop into Ben’s mouth, Ben apparently thinks they really want to do that.
And Ben isn’t the only one who likes to pretend that people who express themselves in colorful creative ways are speaking literally when they do so. There are some people lurking here as well.
Please: get over yourselves. Ben Domenech is a low-life plagiarist. Now he wants you to feel bad for him because someone allegedly said something nasty about Ben’s sister.
Probably Ben was asked by many readers of his blog to fornicate with himself. Did you notice that Ben did not mock those people for daring him to do the impossible? Nope — Ben chose to go with the comment about his sister. So shocking!! So reprehensible!!
Please spare me.
Read Ben’s final RedState post again and try to imagine how ill someone must be to write something like that. He has a long road ahead of himself if he wants to be rehabilitated.
Can I make a prediction? Ben Domenech isn’t going to change. He may not plagiarize, but he’ll continue to lie. And when he’s caught, he’ll try to make YOU feel sorry that he got caught by mentioning that “someone” wanted to put a broom handle in his mommy’s wee-wee or some such nonsense.
Please: do not fall for this crap.
Playtime is over folks. It’s really time to wake up. Time to clean house. Time to keep your eye on the ball.
If Ben’s sister was worth defending, she’d be out there denouncing Ben and his worthless fundie parents.
Think that’s going to happen?
i strongly recommend that those who wish to stay out of prison NOT get their target of affection so intoxicated as to allow that person to raise a claim that the sex was not consensual.
You don’t need to be intoxicated to be allowed to raise such a claim, Francis.
Also, you can’t be put in prison for making obviously sarcastic remarks about public figures — or their sisters — on Internet blogs.
i utterly condemn anyone who wishes physical violence on a political opponent and/or his family.]
I condemn pineapples on pizza.
Now he wants you to feel bad for him because someone allegedly said something nasty about Ben’s sister.
Well, no, now an alleged lefty HAS said something nasty about Ben’s sister. Congratulations.
My comment here was a response to Ben’s provocation and, in my opinion, a reasonable one.
Unpleasant people always think that unpleasant things they think or say are either reasonable, or someone else’s fault. You’ve managed to cram both into a single statement.
Playtime is over folks. It’s really time to wake up…
Oh please go away. I can feel myself turning conservative just to stop being in the same political ideology. Or to avoid the arrogance. Or the cliches.
who is this unpleasant person, and why is he still here?
I find the second question much more compelling than the first.
March 24, 2006 at 07:24 PM, Walter: “It’s time to wake up, folks. Playtime is over.”
March 24, 2006 at 07:51 PM, Walter: “Playtime is over folks. It’s really time to wake up.”
I think it’s been at least two weeks since I’ve last noted on this blog how much more persuasive a point is if we just repeat the same words.
Typically people just didn’t understand the first time. The second time, though, all becomes clear.
It’s even more impressive the third time round. And the fourth, and so on.
“Please: get over yourselves.”
This also tends to be highly persuasive to people. The usual response is to slap one’s self upside the head and declare “why didn’t I think of that before I heard the instruction!?!”
And then they reconsider everything.
These are just life-changing rhetorical techniques. They persuade people every time. Guaranteed not to go wrong.
I think Dale Carnegie advised using them in How To Win Friends And Influence People, but it’s been a long while since I read it.
I guess my comment to that effect wasn’t sufficient clue.
Very well: I, Slartibartfast, do solemnly swear that I edited this comment in the following manner: replaced an occurrence of f*** with[deleted] and one occurrence of a****** with [deleted]. Which deleted replaced which word will be left as an exercise for the reader.
Probably bringing up that I have, for various reasons, deleted posts, would be a bad move at this time. Well, I’m all about bad moves.
And no, Gary, I didn’t do any surgery at all to any post that no longer is recognizable in anywhere near its original form.
Oh please go away. I can feel myself turning conservative just to stop being in the same political ideology.
That’s pathetic.
Well, no, now an alleged lefty HAS said something nasty about Ben’s sister.
Which proves what, Sky Commander? That “Ben was right” when he implied that “leftists” are amoral rapists and murderers?
Please spare me.
Have you drafted an email to Ben yet apologizing to Ben on behalf of all of us?
I heard a rumor that his sister wept when she read those emails.
Boo hoo hoo, she wept and wept and wept.
Let’s see how many people get prosecuting for those threats that Ben alleged.
Or could it be — OH MY GOD — that Ben was simply making crap up so his story would play better to the Little Green Football crowd. And to the folks around here, of course.
Gary Farber
I think it’s been at least two weeks since blah blah blah blah …..
Shorter Gary Farber: I don’t agree with Walter.
Message to Gary Farber: That’s nice.
Could the comment editor please replace the term “prosecuting” with the term “prosecuted” in my 8:14 post?
Thanks.
Walter,
Rather than get all self righteous, I suggest that a better way of putting it would have been this
—-
But in the course of accusing me of racism, homophobia, bigotry, and even (on one extensive Atrios thread) of having a sexual relationship with my mother, the leftists shifted their accusations to ones of plagiarism. You can find the major examples here: I link to this source only because I believe it’s the only place that hasn’t yet written about how they’d like to rape my sister.
What surprised me was Domenach’s claim that every other liberal blog with the exception of ObWi stated (or implied) that they’d like to rape her sister. While this might simply say something about Domenach’s state of mind, it seems to me to reveal a mighty inclination for guilt by association and I wonder how this squares with the multiple assertions at Redstate that Ben is a ‘gentleman’ or with the people who seek to suggest that the problem is not Domenach, but with those who called him out.
Yo lj
Unfortunately, by claiming that ‘the folks around here’ are fooled by this, you simply set yourself out as the only person with any insight, which tends to get people in trouble in my experience. Good luck on finding your voice, though.
Thanks for the kind thoughts.
In my opinion, you write like a slf-bsrbd prss pnts who wants to impress everyone with your oh-so-subtle barbs.
But that’s just me.
[Mildly disemvowelled by the Management. hlzy.]
Uhmmmm can I be the first to officially suggest that the posting rules be vigorously applied?
OK, how many times does WC have to deliberately violate the posting rules before he gets banned?
This became tedious several insults ago.
Walter Concrete: you’re outta here.
Done. I was tempted, but I hate to be too quick on the trigger.
or not fast enough, i guess
Phew. Thanks guys. That was icky.
Luci e ombre sull’Washington Post
Jim Brady, direttore di washingtonpost.com, farà molta attenzione la prossima volta che sceglierà un blogger, ora che Ben Domenech si è licenziato prima di essere cacciato. Non soltanto Media Matters for America e altri si erano chiesti come mai il
Wash. Post Conservative Blogger Resigns Amid Plagiarism Allegations
The liberal blogosphere went into full attack mode this week when the Washington Post hired conservative, partisan blogger Ben Domenech to write a blog for its online website. Bloggers uncovered numerous instances in which the 24 year old Domenech appe…
The amazing thing is to me is that even though we have basically the same opinion, WC chooses to vent his ire on those who probably agree on the substance. The fact is that at some time, the war has to end and you’ve got to live with the people you disagree with. I really wonder why this often is a feature of discourse on the left.
Slart, you needn’t have been so hesitant. As it was, I thought maybe you were taking dpu’s 8:04 PM feelings seriously and were purposely letting WC rant so that we’d all be converted by the end of the evening.
As it was, I thought maybe you were taking dpu’s 8:04 PM feelings seriously…
S’okay, I was exaggerating. I’m back to socialist now.
If I were running a liberal newspaper and wanted to appear balanced, I’d hire someone exactly like Ben Domenech. Just to let him crash and burn.
And I’m NOT saying that’s what the WaPo did. I think they’re just sloppy. But oh, what a perfect dupe Ben Domenech is.
Luci e ombre sull’Washington Post
Jim Brady, direttore di washingtonpost.com, farà molta attenzione la prossima volta che sceglierà un blogger, ora che Ben Domenech si è licenziato prima di essere cacciato. Non soltanto Media Matters for America e altri si erano chiesti come mai il
Luci e ombre sull’Washington Post
Jim Brady, direttore di washingtonpost.com, farà molta attenzione la prossima volta che sceglierà un blogger, ora che Ben Domenech si è licenziato prima di essere cacciato. Non soltanto Media Matters for America e altri si erano chiesti come mai il
Luci e ombre sull’Washington Post
Jim Brady, direttore di washingtonpost.com, farà molta attenzione la prossima volta che sceglierà un blogger, ora che Ben Domenech si è licenziato prima di essere cacciato. Non soltanto Media Matters for America e altri si erano chiesti come mai il
You guys crack me up.
Walter Concrete took you for a hilarious ride.
I understand why you want to hide the evidence but disemvowelling “prissy pants”?
Hahaha. My, aren’t we sensitive?
Wash. Post Conservative Blogger Resigns Amid Plagiarism Allegations
Update: Ben Domenech issues a real apology. It seems sincere and complete. Good for him. ******* The liberal blogosphere went into full attack mode this week when the Washington Post hired conservative, partisan blogger Ben Domenech to write a blog…
You got the links right, but you got the quoted text swapped around for the NRO/Steve Murray case….that is, you’ve got Murray’s ‘Final Fantasy’ review text credited to Domenech and vice versa.
I did a little more research, and finally came up with DATES for this particular case. (Public charges are plagiarism are serious and therefore ought to be backed by as much evidence as possible.) The NRO movie review you link to is dated July 14-15, 2001. The Murray review distributed widely to several online newspapers (probably all affiliated with Cox) is usually undated in Google hits, but here is one archived news page containing the review that is dated July 11, 2001:
http://www.highbeam.com/library/doc0.asp?DOCID=1P1:45768181&refid=holomed_1
Thus if one party plagiarized the other, it probably couldn’t have been Murray copying from Domenech. That’s very important to take note of. Also, those dates present enough time to make it plausible that Domenech consulted Murray’s review while writing his own. Specifically, Murray’s review was apparently up on the web at least three days before the NRO review is dated.
If you feel like bolstering your blog charges, you might want to link to the page noted above that gives the July 11 date.
Also, am I the only one who finds Domenech’s quote to have an apparent grammatical “typo” in it, of the sort that one might produce very easily (have done it myself many times when editing my own work in a word processor) after pasting a sentence in, then making edits to it? Domenech’s “sucking the life out of the earthlings of the human” just doesn’t make sense to me. But the similar line in Murray’s review does make sense: “sucking the life out of the earthlings of ‘Final Fantasy'”. It’s as if Domenech accidentally edited a copied “life out of the earthings” and his own thought “life out of the humans” to get the resulting phrase that contains the redundant-sounding wording.
By the way, I’m a cultural/political conservative. But you and a few other bloggers have convinced me that someone, probably Domenech, appears to have plagiarized here. Good job. I’m into truth, and seek to make that the basis of my own politics.
“I did a little more research, and finally came up with DATES for this particular case.”
This was all superceded by the NRO investigation a couple of days ago, and Domenech already pled guilty in general yesterday; old history by now in internet terms.
M. Bearden: thanks, and sorry about swapping the links. I wrote to the guy at Cox asking for the dates, but have not heard back, so I’m glad you could clear it up.
Laffaire Domenech
Like many who follow and participate in the conservative blog scene, I was happy to learn one week ago, via Michelle Malkin, that Ben Domenech had been hired as The Washington Posts in-house conservative blogger. When I first started blogging i…
Hey, you got linked by Malkin. You’ve hit the big time, kiddo!
I weighed in on this Domenech/Gannon thing in my latest Assclowns of the Week, which is being hosted this time around by Falafel Sex and it’s the longest of the 10 entries by far. I’d like to think that I made observations that noi one else has.
http://www.redstate.com/story/2006/3/24/231559/931
Rookie of the year
I suppose this just makes me one more liberal who’s forgotten how to behave at funerals, but if you want a look at what Ben Domenech’s defenders see in the mirror, read the comment section that follows “Contrition,” his final word last week. It’s all t…
Rookie of the year
I suppose this just makes me one more liberal who’s forgotten how to behave at funerals, but if you want a look at what Ben Domenech’s defenders see in the mirror, read the comment section that follows “Contrition,” his final word last week. It’s all t…
Rookie of the year
I suppose this just makes me one more liberal who’s forgotten how to behave at funerals, but if you want a look at what Ben Domenech’s defenders see in the mirror, read the comment section that follows “Contrition,” his final word last week. It’s all t…
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kooxoo.com
Rookie of the year
I suppose this just makes me one more liberal who’s forgotten how to behave at funerals, but if you want a look at what Ben Domenech’s defenders see in the mirror, read the comment section that follows “Contrition,” his final word last week. It’s all t…
Ben Domenech and the perils of plagiarism
Recently David noted that famed blogger Ben Domenech, a co-founder of the popular RedState blog, had started writing for the Washington Post in a weblog titled Red America. As I noted in the comments, Ben and I have been colleagues…
I have to confess I’ve done the same thing, myself, but I thought that DKG bit was out of line