Domenech - Getting Bent

Or, perhaps getting Domeneched, though I'm unconvinced what recently transpired as regards Ben Domenech will ever rise to the level of noun, like Borked. Time will tell. Captain Ed seems closest to my own feelings about what transpired. Though I see some other reasons for genuine disappointment I'll mention below CQ's quote.

The entire tempest surrounding the hiring and termination of Ben Domenech as the Washington Post's designated conservative blogger shows that the blogosphere has a lot of growing up to do. Between the hysteria, the personal attacks, the revelation of wrongdoing and the triumphalism that followed, bloggers did tremendous damage to themselves.

We had anticipated a lively debate in the Washington Post once Ben started blogging -- but instead we got a slew of ad hominem attacks from bloggers determined to sabotage the Post's experiment. All one has to do is spend a couple of hours surfing through the various Red America links at Memeorandum to understand just how unhinged the attacks were, especially in the beginning. Charges of racism and bigotry flew mighty quickly and with no substantiation, but the accusations themselves took on their own life as a meme. It interfered with the real revelations of plagiarism discovered by some of the same bloggers who had been throwing dishes at Domenech and the Post from the moment Jim Brady announced the effort.

Forgetting left and right fighting for a moment, I see what I think is some very unfortunate commentary coming from several blogs on the right. I ignored all the spurious racist, homophobia, or whatever silly criticism of Domenech and I think too many on the right are allowing it to distract them from the core issue. That nonsense is and was just that - nonsense.

As an example, it was mentioned in passing in the the New York Times article and I suspect most serious future press mentions of the Domenech affair will discount it. That is the tremendously immature and unsightly portion of the blogosphere which makes it look like nothing more than a food fight. It shouldn't be taken seriously. To enjoin it so seriously is to credit it. It doesn't deserve that.

But neither does Ben Domenech deserve our responses to, and critiques of him being couched with that nonsense, almost as some defense. Far too many commenter's and even some bloggers seem too quick to speak too much of what a talented and good man is Ben Domenech.

Not only did this individual betray the widely accepted and serious principles of journalism, but he betrayed his friends and defenders by continuing to lie. Witness his PJ O'Rourke permissions and confusing notes responses long after his disgraceful practice of serial plagiarizing had been discovered. That was flat out lying - and worst of all, he was lying to his friends. He was and, for now at least, is a liar. Pure and simple. And talented at that, for sure.

The man caused a serious website, NRO, to have to go back through archives and sort out the rubbish, picking through the trash of his past work. And in the end, who can finally say how much of it was his, or how talented he was? Not me. I'd have to have a database of everything ever written in my head to do that.

I'm not suggesting his friends shouldn't be his friends. But their hand wringing editorializing still laced with invective toward the left displays a lack of humility in the face of the outrageous behavior of this young man. He was a fraud, at least to the extent that even his genuine published work should be dismissed and buried. If genuine, as I assume much is, it only serves as a disgraceful reminder of why he didn't need to take the unethical shortcuts he did.

As I understand it, he didn't graduate from William and Mary. He claimed to have been the youngest Bush appointee. He had positions as speechwriter for more than one politician. I wonder if he really did write the speeches, or was he simply staff? I don't know because I don't trust anything about the man right now. Nor should I.

When those that start out with great advantage because of family and friends go on to take great advantage in such an unethical manner, it should deeply trouble people of principle. It saddens me to see so many on the right so quick to rationalize what amounts to an upstart, fast talking punk without ethics as a wonderful young kid who made a simple mistake. Were his last name Kennedy, I doubt it would be so.

I don't care about the left. But many of the right are allowing their own ideology to interfere with their principled judgment. The word for that is cronyism. And serial plagiarists and liars, which Ben Domenech proved himself to be in his first non-apology to all this, do not deserve cronies. At least not ones willing to stand on principle regardless of politics.

That's what we regularly ask the MSM to do and we loudly point it out when they don't. If the right blogosphere is to be the principled media it would purport to be, if it's ever to mature, it's time to apply some of our principles to ourselves.

If we fail to do so, that would ultimately be the significant failing in and around the relatively insignificant Ben Domenech. And it would be our failure, not his.

Comments

[don surber]

"When those that start out with great advantage because of family and friends go on to take great advantage in such an unethical manner, it should deeply trouble people of principle."

Dang, you read my mind!