by hilzoy
As I wrote last night, a lot of cases of what seem to be plagiarism by Ben Domenech have been found by various bloggers. (Comprehensive list here.) I’ve already said what I have to say about the plagiarism itself; and now, while Domenech has not (apparently) admitted wrongdoing, he has resigned. I now want to focus on the response by bloggers on the right.
Some people, including our own Charles Bird, have taken what seems to me the right approach: to say that the charges are in fact serious, and if proven mean that Domenech has done something seriously wrong.
Erick at RedState has said that the episode involves “permissions obtained and judgments made offline were not reflected online by an out dated and out of business campus newspaper.” I don’t think this one will fly. For one thing, not all the apparent cases of plagiarism are from Domenech’s college paper.
More importantly, however, I find it peculiar to think that any movie critic, let alone a whole bunch of them, would readily give permission for someone else to use their prose, lightly massaged, in his or her own movie review. I used to date a film critic, and this is just not how film reviews are done. Nor can I readily imagine PJ O’Rourke readily giving permission for someone to publish a version of a chapter of his book in which references to Domenech’s college had been stuck in at various points, without attribution. Moreover, even if one or two writers were willing to engage in this bizarre practice, there are too many to make this story plausible to me. If I am wrong, I will, of course, eat these words.
Others are offering what I can only call excuses for misconduct. Some say that we’ve all done worse; and besides, he was just a college student. The part about his being just a college student is, I think, risible: for one thing, he’s barely older than a college student now, and for another, at eighteen or twenty, people should have enough responsibility and character not to do this stuff. Most of the undergraduates I teach do.
As to the claim that we’ve all done worse: I’m not sure whether this reflects the view that plagiarism isn’t all that bad, in which case I can only say that I disagree, or a pretty high level of past misconduct. In either case, I don’t think it’s at all clear that this level of misconduct is that widespread, nor that, if it were, that would mean that we can’t hold people to account for it, and besides, as (probably) all of our mothers used to say: just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t mean it isn’t wrong.
The response I find most troubling, though, is this:
“It was Hannah Arendt who introduced us to the banality of evil. There was more to this thing called “evil” than grainy newsreel footage of delirious chanting of “Sieg Heil” or the “Internationale.” Rage and hatred were not the first steps toward convincing seemingly normal people to go along with totalitarianism. First, repression had to seem normal. Domestic enemies were not hated – they were dehumanized. In the eyes of their countrymen, their souls were emptied of any qualities extraneous to Political Man. They were the imperialist/capitalist running dog/Jew/Trotskyite – and that was all.
In 2006 in America, we see perfect replicas of Stalin’s drones at work in response to about the only decent thing said about the Domenech affair on Daily Kos. It is an exquisite performance right out of the two minutes hate. (…)
Now is the time to close ranks, and not give in to the temptations of the circular firing squad. (…) Michelle. Hugh. Rush. Glenn. This is the moment. Where will you stand?”
(Similar sentiments here, and in comments all over RedState.)
As I wrote earlier in comments, I feel for some of the editors at RedState. I have tried to imagine what it would be like if one of the other posters here were in roughly Domenech’s situation, and it isn’t pleasant. And I admire their loyalty, and the impulse to stick up for one of their own.
But this response is just wrong. I won’t quarrel with the characterization of Domenech’s critics on the left — some of them have made perfectly good arguments, and some of them seem to me to have gotten nastier than they should have. But that’s not the crucial point. The crucial point, as far as I’m concerned, is: you should not let your view of an issue be driven by your view of the people on one side of it; and you should not stick up for conduct that is, in fact, wrong just because you dislike the people making the accusations.
It’s always a good exercise to ask yourself: how would I feel if the same situation existed, but with conservatives in the position of liberals and vice versa? In this case, it’s not just a good exercise; it’s an easy one, since something very much like what Erick and Machiavel think is happening now has happened before, with the ideological roles reversed. And I think that it would help both liberals to understand some conservatives’ responses, and conservatives to understand what liberals think is wrong with those responses, if they would consider this analogy:
This is what we thought happened to Bill Clinton.
Now: obviously, Ben Domenech is not the President (thank Heaven for small mercies), and bloggers on the left have been after him not for years, but for a week. But leave those details aside; for now, I’m more focussed now on the fact that the Domenech situation as Erick and Machiavel see it is a lot like the Lewinsky affair as we saw it than in whose perceptions are right. In both cases, someone was the object of what his opponents might think of as vigorous scrutiny, and his supporters think of as an attempt to get him no matter what. In both cases, that person turned out actually to have done something wrong. And in both cases, his supporters had to ask themselves: does the fact that they completely dislike his opponents mean that they should overlook the fact that what he did was wrong?
Saying ‘no’ does not mean that you forget about those opponents. In the case of Clinton, I thought I was capable of bearing several points in mind all at once. Namely:
(a) There were people, whom I regarded as dishonorable, who had been trying to find something to get him with for years, by any means necessary.
(b) He was dumb enough to hand them an actual scandal. — Personally, I regard the question who someone has sex with as between the people in question, their spouses and children (if any), and God (if he exists.) Normally, I think it’s none of my business. In this case, however, Clinton’s decision to have sex with Monica Lewinsky was also a decision to let his entire agenda be derailed for the rest of his Presidency, and I have a hard time forgiving him for that.
(c) That he did something wrong was (in my mind) quite distinct from the question whether he should be impeached. I thought that the answer to that question was ‘no’, since I didn’t think it was an impeachable offense.
I suspect that conservatives had very little respect for those on the left who defended Clinton simply because they were unwilling to allow his critics to win on anything. Speaking for myself, I understood that temptation: I really did think that there had been a campaign against him, and that it had been unscrupulous and vile. But the character of his attackers had precisely nothing to do with the question whether he had done something wrong.
Likewise here. I can think of some bloggers who I think went overboard (I mean, it would be an odd day in the blogosphere if this weren’t true), just as I can think of some I think made perfectly good criticisms of the Post’s decision to hire Ben Domenech. But I can’t manage to wrap my mind around the thought that the mere existence of the former should prevent people from taking an honest position on the question: is plagiarism wrong? And if they think it is wrong, I can’t see that the existence of critics they think are unscrupulous should lead them not to say: if Ben Domenech plagiarized, then what he did was wrong.
(That said: no one on the left who understands why some people were unwilling to give Clinton’s critics any quarter should claim to be wholly mystified by Erick and Machiavel’s response. The temptation to respond that way should, in my view, be resisted, but it’s not incomprehensible.)
***
One more thing. If Ben Domenech did plagiarize — and at this point I have a hard time seeing how he didn’t, though if I’m wrong I will of course eat these words* — then the next question to ask is: did Erick and Machiavel, or any other editors at RedState, talk to him before they posted their defense? Obviously, I don’t know the answer, but their posts suggest to me that they did. (Erick’s claim that it’s all about “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”, in particular, isn’t presented as though it’s just Erick’s theory.)
If he did, then he has not only plagiarized; he has exploited his co-bloggers’ loyalty and willingness to defend him. He has hung them out to dry, along with the mysterious ‘editor’ on whom some of these things are blamed. That’s a despicable thing to do to anyone, let alone your friends.
***
* Added just before I post: I just read Ben Domenech’s explanation. I don’t find it convincing. And I’m speaking here as someone who deals with plagiarism in the course of her job, and who regularly reports students to the relevant Deans for less substantive cases than this one. For one thing, it doesn’t address the NRO pieces* — here’s a new one, from the dKos, comprehensive list: compare the last para. on this page of a Salon article to the third to last paragraph of this Domenech piece in NRO.
For another, I honestly don’t see how the PJ O’Rourke case is one that “permission” would make OK. You just don’t pass off someone else’s work as your own, with ot without permission; and that’s plainly what he did. If permission was given, it would also be interesting to know whether O’Rourke understood that Domenech wasn’t just proposing to use his general idea or his theme, but most of his chapter with only occasional trivial modifications.
As before, though: if I’m wrong, I will eat my words.
***
*Update: From NRO:
“A MESSAGE TO OUR READERS [The Editors]
As the previous links on the matter 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.”
(h/t Phil, in comments.)
The Flat Hat editor defends her/himself.
But I can’t manage to wrap my mind around the thought that the mere existence of the former should prevent people from taking an honest position on the question: is plagiarism wrong?
There were a number of commentors at RedState who went through exactly the thought process hilzoy recommends, and amazingly, reached the conclusion that plagiarism is, in fact, not wrong, or at least not in this case.
Numerous posters, most prominently Leon, expressed their belief that it was no big deal since it was “only” about movie reviews, and had “only” occurred in college in any event. Note that we are not talking about some transgression Bob Woodward committed in college, but rather the issue of what a 24-year old did a few years ago.
Trevino expressed the view that even if the allegations were true, and even if Domenech has no credibility as a result, it was no big deal because one does not need credibility to hold a job as an opinion writer.
Any number of posters also raced to make the point that plagiarism can easily occur by accident, as when one conjures up a pleasing turn of phrase without recalling that it was originally someone else’s work. While a valid point, it seems wildly inappropriate as a defense of someone who copied article after article after article.
I find this completely unsurprising, given that it comes from people who fervently believe that if you write an editorial critical of the President, your wife deserves to be outed as a covert CIA operative; nevertheless, it is disappointing as a commentary on human nature.
Holy smokes, the impenitence!
The cognitive dissonance among Mr. Domenech’s supporters is also striking. He was supposedly some sort of Wünderkind with the maturity to work at Human Events at age 15. Yet at the same time his trangressions are written off as youthful indiscretion.
Just to be contrarian, what about the Biden case mentioned in the other thread?
rilkefan: I don’t think it’s as bad a case of plagiarism (though I can’t recall e.g. how many instances there were, so I’m working from memory), but that’s irrelevant: any plagiarism is bad enough. This knocked him out of contention for the nomination in ’88 (iirc), and I thought that was exactly right, at the time.
If I had the slightest inclination to support him, I might ask myself whether the fact that it’s now some 18 years in the past, and as far as I know hasn’t been repeated, is relevant; whether the fact that people can change should imply some sort of statute of limitations on consideration of this stuff in politics. As it is, however, I don’t see the need to get into that question, since I wouldn’t support him in any case.
Leon H to Charles, in a comment on RedState (he’s talking about what Charles seems like): “What it is actually like is someone who feels such a pressing need to have moral midgets like Markos Moulitsas say nice things about him rushing out to play first to be “responsible” and undercut a loyal ally and a friend.”
Charles: as someone who only two or three days ago was described thus:
— I can only say: welcome to the club. I’ll show you the secret handshake privately.
He lifted five paragraphs as a law student, apparently, but yeah, not as bad a case I guess, and I’m not in the mood to consider scenarios where Biden gets the nomination in ’08. So what’s the limit in this case? Does Domenech get his career back (assuming an actual mea culpa) in five years? What do we think he should do at this point?
it is disappointing as a commentary on human nature
See, that’s the difference between right and left, Steve.
You think their response to Domenesch is a sign of human nature; they think our response is a sign that we aren’t human.
Redstate is starting to become completely frightening. It’s like Ben Domenech was going to get made or something, but instead a la Goodfellas the MSM shot him in the back of the head and now Redstate is left at the other end of the line, weeping into Ray Liotta’s arms.
Re: Right Wing response – I’m somewhat surprised to see Michelle Malkin refer moonbats and in the same sentence link to our talented hilzoy’s earlier post:
It is only Obsidian Wing’s policies that restrain my comment to soley observing that Malkin is a talentless hack who may not even be writing her own columns, and who’s crackpot politics only enjoy any polarity at all because there will always be a certain segment of the media-reading public who would pay to see someone bite the head off a live rat.
Above: polarity == popularity.
Although the typo may fit as well.
I don’t know what “we” do, other than think: sheesh, plagiarism is wrong. I think that limits depend on really putting it behind you in some serious way, but (just making this up here) shouldn’t take less than, oh, five years — just because it takes a while for anyone to have any grounds for thinking that the plagiarist has conclusively put it behind them and become a seriously different sort of person.
I mean: things like this generally have some cause or other. If I had to guess, I’d go with a sense of entitlement, combined with an assumption that he was automatically on the right side, and so moral scrutiny was less necessary. But that’s just a complete wild guess, offered only to allow me to say: before any newspaper should hire him again, they should want to be sure not just that he has taken a vow never to plagiarize again, but also that whatever flaw of judgment or character accounted for the first instance no longer exists. Since if that flaw does exist, then even if he doesn’t plagiarize again, he might still cut a lot of moral corners — as, for instance, he would if the hypothetical explanation offered above were accurate.
My last comment directed to rilkefan.
Domenech’s defense posted at RedState centers around the claim that his student editors at William & Mary supposedly pasted the offending passages into his movie reviews, over and over again, without his consent or knowledge.
Maybe I am still naive at this stage in my life, but I am still shocked that honest-to-goodness intelligent human beings – albeit human beings who believe that tax cuts increase revenues, et al. – actually believe this story, and are lining up to thank Ben for his “classy” response.
They will literally swallow ANYTHING as long as one of their ideological comrades says it. I’m flabbergasted.
Bill Clinton’s deposition testimony reflects permissions obtained and judgments made off the record that were not reflected on the record by an out dated transcript . . .
Steve, not only do they believe it, they are getting prepared to consider anyone who doesn’t an insane member of the dread rage-filled Left.
rilkefan – I saw the example you posted on the other thread. It was a more extensive reworking of the original, and expressed a rather common observation. (ie, I was the first one in my family to go to college, and so was my wife.)
It was similar, yes, but if I were investigating it I would have been hard pressed to think of it as plagiarism. Is it plagiarism to borrow a rhetorical device, even if you substantially alter the phrasing of it?
Did Biden admit that he plaigarized it?
I’m not trying to defend Biden, I don’t really care for him at all, and I certainly don’t think what Domenench did is not plagiarism, but I’m trying to be clear on the distinction.
Do these plagiarism-deniers have children of their own? Oh my, WHAT ARE WE GOING TO TELL THE CHILDREN????
Does Domenech get his career back
What was that career, exactly? Was he ever more than a right-wing agent provocateur? I doubt this disqualifies him for that role.
“Did Biden admit that he plaigarized it?”
Yeah, as I said or meant to in the other thread, he does, and he’s classy about it.
My point, not that it’s sharp, is that I don’t listen to Biden and think, “Plagiarist” (more like, “Blowhard” or occasionally, “that’s kind of insightful, or maybe I’m not caught up on the CW”). If he were on the other side, I don’t know how easy it would be to get past that.
And I sort of feel bad for Domenech, and wonder how he can get his life on track after this public flameout (which he still isn’t, I think, confronting honestly). And for that matter I feel kind of bad for the RSers enabling his denial (assuming) out of loyalty or partisanship.
“I feel for some of the editors at RedState. I have tried to imagine what it would be like if one of the other posters here were in roughly Domenech’s situation, and it isn’t pleasant. And I admire their loyalty, and the impulse to stick up for one of their own.”
I think quite a bit of this happened. I repeatedly said that we didn’t want to be play the role of obstructionist 60 Minutes in this blogosphere event. The actual result speaks for itself.
I think quite a bit of the defensive nature of the response has to do with the early attacks. He was subject to about 5 or 6 attacks, some quite ugly before the plagiarism charge took off. A defensive rhythmn was set up on the more personal attacks that got carried over. Please understand this is an explanation not an excuse.
Note that we are not talking about some transgression Bob Woodward committed in college, but rather the issue of what a 24-year old did a few years ago.
Steve, this particular passage caught my attention, because I would hope that if Bob Woodward were to have been found to have committed the same offenses as Domenech 40 years ago, the consequences would be no less severe… Woodward, or any other respected journalist, should not be immunized from the results of their actions simply because they were caught later.
To take the hypothetical to its conclusion, if Woodward were 24 again and had been caught plagiarizing, his career would be ended just as surely as Domenech’s – how can we know whether either would later go on to transcend their errors and become distinguished journalists? As such, the consequences of plagiarism should be severe for anyone, at any stage, regardless of their reputation or performance.
I just read Ben Domenech’s explanation. I don’t find it convincing. And I’m speaking here as someone who deals with plagiarism in the course of her job, and who regularly reports students to the relevant Deans for less substantive cases than this one.
It would appear that either he or one of the moderators at RedState has deleted it (unless there’s some other explanation for getting a 500 Internal server error when I click on the link).
In my view, Domenech’s denial on RedState is a more damning offense than the original plagiarism, because it is transparently a bigger lie.
Plagiarism is bad, but I could still take a writer seriously even knowing that he had been guilty of copying others’ work in the past. But unless the facts are very, very different from how they now appear, by all lights, to be, Domenech’s semi-detailed denial is a flat-out, bald-faced lie. And no one should take him seriously after that.