Ben Domenech resigns.
By on Mar 24th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
Ben Domenech resigns.
Post executive editor Jim Brady: “In the past 24 hours, we learned of allegations that Ben Domenech plagiarized material that appeared under his byline in various publications prior to washingtonpost.com contracting with him to write a blog that launched Tuesday. An investigation into these allegations was ongoing, and in the interim, Domenech has resigned, effective immediately.”
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ArchivesBlog Roll
“Why, he’s no fun, he fell right over!” — Firesign Theatre
March 24th, 2006 at 1:43 pmIndolence should be a goal and not a starting place.
March 24th, 2006 at 1:43 pmLOL that was fast.
March 24th, 2006 at 1:45 pmIt’s just flabbergasting that someone professional in this day and age would plagiarize. Nevermind someone up for a job as the Washington Post’s “conservative” blogger. Talk about ASKING for it. What an idiot.
March 24th, 2006 at 1:46 pmWhomever hired Domenech is too inept to handle a two-house paper route and should be canned too.
March 24th, 2006 at 1:49 pmBye, Ben. Too bad your career (any career) is over. Of course, it’s all the left’s fault. Maybe the Job Service has listings for whiny assed titty babies.
March 24th, 2006 at 1:50 pmFrom Jim Brady: “We appreciate the speed and thoroughness with which our readers and media outlets surfaced these allegations.” So now he appreciates us?
March 24th, 2006 at 1:56 pm#1: you beat me to it. Dammit. Anyway, hmmm….. BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
March 24th, 2006 at 1:58 pmHey WashPost, great vetting process there! Do you report with skills like that? Certainly some of you do!
Kay Graham — Spinning like a centrifuge in her grave!
March 24th, 2006 at 1:58 pmThe BORG are falling quicker everyday. Time seems to collapse. In no time, it will all be the Left Wing blogs fault…someone had to expose this guy.
March 24th, 2006 at 2:00 pmSure, his career as the WaWhorePost is over, but young Ben shouldn’t have any problem finding a job- There are plenty here
March 24th, 2006 at 2:01 pmDing, dong, Domenech’s career is dead… he’ll probably say he resigned to “spend more time with his family”
March 24th, 2006 at 2:01 pmWhere’s intersting? He was saying how nice this guy is?
What a nice lying plagarist Ben turned out to be.
March 24th, 2006 at 2:01 pm#13 There was supposed to be a link-
March 24th, 2006 at 2:02 pmDarn it, goarmy.com, mr. Box Turtle Ben.
March 24th, 2006 at 2:03 pmIs it just me, or was Brady’s letter a tad passive agressive? Thanks SO much for the speed and effectiveness with which you made me look like a fool! Oh, and we still want a diversity of ideologies, so there’s another freeper blogger on the way!!
March 24th, 2006 at 2:03 pm1) I suspect they will now find somebody worse
March 24th, 2006 at 2:12 pm2) Bush will appoint Ben a federal judge
this is good – but this is better -
found a transcript … matthews on imus this morning ( link getting flagged as spam – go to msnbc.msn.com):
“Well I am just going to stick to this point that the president led us in there with the background music of American culture. Everybody was led to believe that we were getting payback, we were avenging what happened on 9/11 and that we are going to get them…
The reason there are terrorists in Iraq today like Zarqawi is we created the opening by blowing the country apart…
So you really can’t count on the administration to tell you what is going on. That is just the fact…
…the president said this week that he wants the whole truth about what is going on in Iraq, the whole truth and that the media isn’t telling the whole story. I’ll tell you what we are not telling. We are not showing pictures of the twenty five hundred bodies coming back because they won’t let us show the pictures. They don’t want the whole truth out and that’s the fact.”
see “NEWS QUOTE OF THE DAY”
March 24th, 2006 at 2:12 pmawaiting the clips somewhere!
You all want some fun? Go over to redstate & watch them knash their teeth & collectivly pull out their hair!
The truth isn’t always easy.
1 down, dumbya to go.
March 24th, 2006 at 2:22 pmI hope the Post learned from their mistake and take the opportunity to do it right this time and put one of the TP guys on as well as conservative bloggers and get some real dialogue going.
March 24th, 2006 at 2:23 pm#20- So much for tweety’s adoration of his “sunny nobility” (gag) eh?
March 24th, 2006 at 2:25 pmKaty, the site was down for a few minutes and I lost my comments regarding C. Matthews.
March 24th, 2006 at 2:27 pmI heard Sam Seder’s remarks today (at least the last part of it) and I am still skeptical. Perhaps Tweety is distancing himself from his usual Bush-loving thunder because of his brother’s run in Pa. or perhaps the change in his demeanor is due to the letters received by the NBC VPs from viewers complaining of Matthew’s questionable speaking engagements that are against NBC ethics policies.
Whatever – if he has changed his tune, I welcome it, but I remain skeptical that it will hold — time will tell. Leopards and spots you know.
Betcha the righties will have their knickers in a twist now because one of “theirs” got canned — never mind that he was dishonest, never mind that his remarks are totally inflammatory and off-the-wall. While I have my issues with the WaPo, they made a big mistake in hiring Domenech and they have corrected it — the righties will claim this is more proof of the so-called “liberal” media.
March 24th, 2006 at 2:31 pmThey think Dana Milbank is “liberal” — Milbank runs on both sides of the fence — he is an equal opportunity reporter. He is labeled “liberal” because he does not cheerlead for the BushCo.
The funniest stuff is this: In Defense of Ben Domenech, in which the plagiarism is called “bile and lunacy dumped by the left side of the web,” and a commenter explains why: Because “They hate it when conservatives succeed.”
HAHAHAHA
Thankfully, there ARE actual principled conservatives still in existence: Ben Domenech Must Resign.
March 24th, 2006 at 2:34 pm#21
March 24th, 2006 at 2:35 pmTried to get to his site and got a “Server Error” message. Could it have crashed because of all the red state supporters rushing to his side?
I’m surprised that the Post was dumb enough to even think about it. Putting a clearly questionable character like Domenech was just plain stupid. They knew that it would end like this. Quit pandering to the neo-con right W Post!
http://www.lcoliberal.blogspot.com
Conrad Burns and a fake lobbyist: ‘Nuff said
http://www.sunstateactivist.org
March 24th, 2006 at 2:37 pmFull list of Progressive news and events
HA HA HA HA HA! How could Domenech be such an idiot? The power of the blogs has arrived. Long live Atrios and Dailykos! Eat it Michelle Malkin!
March 24th, 2006 at 2:38 pmBen, your 15 minutes of fame are up!
March 24th, 2006 at 2:41 pmNEXT!
Just got in and this is what one of their letter writers is saying:
“The only honorable response in this situation is to remove Domenech from the masthead/editorship of RedState. Can any other conceivable option be entertained for a plagiarist? Obviously he should still be allowed to post or write diaries like any other member, but I would be deeply hesitant to promote to the front page, given that it would inevitably appear to be a tacit endorsement. “
Typical Repub response, he’s a liar and got caught but let’s still let him spew his lies.
March 24th, 2006 at 2:42 pmdamn liberal bias again, wapo, what a rag, getting rid of this guy, what about all of the positive things Domenech has done, why can’t the press focus on the good
(if you can’t see this as a joke log off, you’ve been add it too long)
March 24th, 2006 at 2:46 pmoh, hell yea, marie – scepticism flag is way up there…
March 24th, 2006 at 2:47 pmjust another exapmle of a righty jumping ship, i hope…
he can’t take the words back anyway…
Hopefully, those in college (or high school) or fresh out take a heartfelt leson from this week’s mess DON’T CHEAT, no matter how good the payoff seems, it is not worth it, you will be caught out eventually (sure you may be president for a few years, but you will eventually get caught out :)
on the flipside, remind those who stick up for this liar (and thief) that they are sending the wrong message!!!!
-moral high ground my ass-
March 24th, 2006 at 3:05 pmI think since Ben needs a job and since the Military is short handed, Ben can join and serve our president and country.
March 24th, 2006 at 3:06 pmIf only Bush and Chenney cut and run like that!
No actually Ben you did the right thing. Unless you can explain yourself to reasonable people that is… or at least learn to ask for forgiveness (and how to give it) ….
March 24th, 2006 at 3:08 pm#36 (& Reality)
Since the recruitment standardss have been lowered, they will probably welcome this degenerate liar & thief
March 24th, 2006 at 3:09 pmThe trolls’ heads are spinning. I can feel the gust blowing around now. It is a lovely day for a kite, I believe.
March 24th, 2006 at 3:10 pm1) I suspect they will now find somebody worse
2) Bush will appoint Ben a federal judge
Comment by afterthought
oh that was funny…real funny… Dear god! …it is probably true also… >-(
March 24th, 2006 at 3:11 pm[...] That didn’t take very long. BMW decks out the interior of an Airbus, very slick. [...]
March 24th, 2006 at 3:16 pmMission Accomplished
March 24th, 2006 at 3:18 pmSorry, off topic,,,,,Thousands marching in Arizona and California, resisting the administrations up and coming allien bills in congress……Hummmm, agree or disagree we all need to join up with all groups, stand together and get this bunch out of office..Blessings
March 24th, 2006 at 3:18 pmWow
March 24th, 2006 at 3:23 pmStill can’t reach Red State. C’mon out chickens, we won’t rub your noses in it too much!
March 24th, 2006 at 3:28 pm#
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.
What Brady really means is that us unpatriotic extremist lefties do our home work and have the facts on our side.
Comment by Spudge_Boy — March 24, 2006 @ 2:35 pm
Gee, WaPo, the citizen journalists doing the job you are supposed to do. Giving a plum job to a lightweight RNC hack is one thing, not doing your own due diligence on who you allow to write opinions under your banner is something else entirely. So how does the Washington Post go about getting their reputation back?
Cheer up Ben…you can at least lay claim to the shortest career at the Post. Hopefully, you can take some of your own advice and take personal responsibility for the mess you created for yourself. The upside is you now have plenty of time available to enlist and support that war in Iraq that you love so much…it’s almost like a videogame!
March 24th, 2006 at 3:47 pmI can’t rub their noses in it. They booted me long ago.
The again, I’m better off not associating with the frindge elements of the nutwing of the Republican Party.
March 24th, 2006 at 3:48 pmFunny how RedState.org can’t handle too much traffic (it keeps crashing). I thought Ben had triumphantly declared that “Redstaters” were the majority in this country. So, shouldn’t their eponymous website have tons of bandwidth?
March 24th, 2006 at 4:00 pmI just returned from the Hades of redstate.
Ben put up a post. he kind of admits to having plagerized. he never apologized for calling Coretta King a Communist, & (cymbal crash) he blames liberals for his demise.
OK, there you have republican honor in a nutshell. You can get caught red-handed doing something & it’s your opponents fault. That’s a very adult way of dealing with it. He must have learned that behaviour from watching bushco operate the last 6 years.
The comment section is a riot and horribly pathetic at the same time. Definitely a good read, so long as you have a strong stomach.
March 24th, 2006 at 4:06 pmHere’s Ben’s post at RedState-
Red America Ends
By: Augustine · Section: Miscellania
Red America, my new blog at washingtonpost.com, has been under attack since its launch. It is a conservative blog on a mainstream media site, so many of the attacks were expected. If one bothers to read it, I believe it stands as a welcome addition to the opinion debate.
The hate mail that I have received since the launch of this blog has been overwhelmingly profane and violent. My family has been threatened; my friends have been deluged; my phone has been prank called. The most recent email that showed up while writing this post talked about how the author would like to hack off my head, and wishes my mother had aborted me.
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.
I know that charges of plagiarism are serious. While I am not a journalist, I have, myself, written more than one thing that has been plagiarized in the past. But these charges have also served to create an atmosphere where no matter what is said on my Red America blog, leftists will focus on things with my byline from when I was a teenager.
I can rebut several of the alleged incidents here. The most recent accusation, is that I stole a music review from Crosswalk and passed it off at National Review Online. In fact, I wrote both lists myself; I was one of Crosswalk’s music review contributors at the time.
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. But the quotes I used were either properly credited or came from Sen. Frist’s press conference, which I attended along with many other reporters. So it is no surprise that we had similar quotes or similar descriptions of the same event. I have reams of notes and interviews about the events of that day. I also went over the entire piece step by step with NYPress editors to ensure that it was unquestionably solid before it ran.
Virtually every other alleged instance of plagiarism that I’ve seen comes from a single semester’s worth of pieces that were printed under my name at my college paper, The Flat Hat, when I was 17.
In one instance, I have been accused me of passing off P.J. O’Rourke’s writing as my own in a column for the paper. But the truth is that I had met P.J. at a Republican event and asked his permission to do a college-specific version of his classic piece on partying. He granted permission, the piece was cleared with my editors at the paper, and it ran as inspired by O’Rourke’s original.
My critics have also accused me of plagiarism in multiple movie reviews for the college paper. I once caught an editor at the paper inserting a line from The New Yorker (which I read) into my copy and protested. When that editor was promoted, I resigned. Before that, insertions had been routinely made in my copy, which I did not question. I did not even at that time read the publications from which I am now alleged to have lifted material. When these insertions were made, I assumed, like most disgruntled writers would, that they were unnecessary but legitimate editorial additions.
But all these specifics are beside the point. Considering that all of this happened almost eight years ago, and that there are no files or notes that I’ve kept from that brief stint, it is simply my word against the liberal blogosphere on these examples. It becomes a matter of who you believe.
The truth is, a more responsible teenager would’ve nipped this sort of thing in the bud. A less sloppy writer would have made sure that material copied from other places never made it into a published piece, and never necessitated apologies or explanations that will do nothing to stop the critics. I was wrong not to do so.
But I do have one other collegiate example that might be to the point. When I was a junior in college, I wrote an article about liberal protests against Henry Kissinger’s visit to our campus. The leftists featured in the piece tried to get me kicked out of school. They mounted a six-month campaign against me. They posted fliers about me on campus. They sent me reams of hate mail. Ultimately, they were unsuccessful – the Honor Council completely cleared my name and the article as the truth. The events of the past 72 hours seem like a rerun of that experience.
The truth is, no conservative could write for the Post without being subject to the gauntlet of the liberal attack machine. There is no question in my mind that any RedState contributor writing for this blog would have found leftists delving through his high school yearbooks and grade school book reports in an effort to discredit and defame him. And if you too were a sloppy teenage writer, your errors or the errors of others would’ve been exploded.
I have a great many friends who are willing to stand and defend me on this. I appreciate their support. I have enormous respect for Jim Brady and the vision he has at WPNI. But while the folks at washingtonpost.com understand my position and are convinced by my arguments on many of these issues, they also feel that the firestorm here will only serve to damage us all, and that there is no way this blog can continue without being permanently tagged to this firestorm. Therefore, I have resigned this position with washingtonpost.com.
This is a shame. As you all know, I am a conservative, but not a partisan – I believe had this blog been allowed to continue, it would have been a significant addition to the Post’s site. The Post showed bravery by including a conservative voice, and I hope they continue to seek that balance.
While my blog was only alive for a week, it did have one result that was encouraging. If the change of heart described here continues, it will all have been worth it.
To my friends: thank you for your support. To my enemies: I take enormous solace in the fact that you spent this week bashing me, instead of America.
Regards,
Ben
—————-
“My family has been threatened; my friends have been deluged; my phone has been prank called. The most recent email that showed up while writing this post talked about how the author would like to hack off my head, and wishes my mother had aborted me.”
Yeah, Ben, sure……it’s all someone else’s fault.
March 24th, 2006 at 4:13 pmFunny how RedState.org can’t handle too much traffic (it keeps crashing). I thought Ben had triumphantly declared that “Redstaters†were the majority in this country. So, shouldn’t their eponymous website have tons of bandwidth?
Good point. I haven’t been able to get on all day long! They simply aren’t serving their constituency, are they? Not that I’m part of their contituency, I’m a redstate troll when I have to be.
March 24th, 2006 at 4:17 pm#14 Of course he resigned “to spend more time with his family.” His Mom’s basement
March 24th, 2006 at 4:18 pmhasn’t been occupied. And his Dad’s already working on fixing the attic. ;)
Love by the blog! Die by the blog!
March 24th, 2006 at 4:18 pmThe Ghost of Corretta Scott King has haunted his sorry 24-year-old ass and has sent him from the Washington Post back to Mama’s basement.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
March 24th, 2006 at 4:21 pmThe Germans have such a useful word, Schadenfreude, joy in the misfortune of others. Sometimes, a public beheading can be so much fun.
March 24th, 2006 at 4:22 pmSick of this Ben business already? Well, this is not about Ben.
March 24th, 2006 at 4:34 pm.
To my friends: thank you for your support. To my enemies: I take enormous solace in the fact that you spent this week bashing me, instead of America.
Regards,
Ben
Straw man …what a weak weak mind he has. You are right up there with “fool me three times or something” Bush. What do you know? Americans …have been bashing … America! …wow and I thought it was just the neo cons/conservative/relgiofascists…but we have been bashing ALL of AMERICA!!! What a strong argument you present there Ben.
March 24th, 2006 at 4:38 pmBLOG POWER!
March 24th, 2006 at 4:41 pmBLOG POWER!
BLOG POWER!
BLOG POWER!
BLOG POWER!
Hey Ben,
Sorry you had to resign, but I guess that’s what happens when you are a racist, plagarizing, ass-kissing son of a bitch.
March 24th, 2006 at 4:43 pmI think Josh Marshall nails it with this:
Most of all, though, Ben, thank you for illustrating Dr. Johnson’s dictum that ‘patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.’
Vainglory, today, thy name is Ben.
– Josh Marshall
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007996.php
March 24th, 2006 at 6:35 pmSo reading his thingy he seems to say that he is not a plagarist, why did he resign then? The only thing I can think of is that he has a totally different definition o fplagerism than te rest of the world.
March 24th, 2006 at 7:24 pmNever visited the Red State site before today. Found prominently featured by an apparent editor a statement that describes my family as being sub-human. I think the word is untermenshen, isn’t it? Because some plagiarist got caught out? Or are there darker motivations afoot?
April 1st, 2006 at 3:50 pm