Thursday , March 28 2024
Ben Domenech: "I hope that nothing I've done will reflect badly on the movement and principles I believe in."

Blogger Tries To Spin His Plagarism Problem, Then Acts Contrite

I never thought I would be saying this but Michelle Malkin is right.

Well, right, at least, about The Washington Post blogger who resigned this week after an avalanche of bloggers wrote about him.

I wrote yesterday about what happened with blogger Ben Domenech, but there are two additional elements to the story that should also be shared.

One is that Domenech remained in denial until sometime later, when he became contrite. More on that in a minute.

The second of those is that Malkin, a conservative blogger who I have criticized repeatedly for being the kind of blogger who gives bloggers a bad name, split from her partisan allies and criticized Domenech.

Malkin, who has worked closely with Domenech in the past, wrote:

As someone who has worked in daily journalism for 14 years, I have a lot of experience related to this horrible situation: I’ve had my work plagiarized by shameless word and idea thieves many times over the years. I’ve also been baselessly accused of plagiarism by some of the same leftists now attacking Ben.

The bottom line is: I know it when I see it. And, painfully, Domenech’s detractors are right. He should own up to it and step down. Then, the Left should cease its sick gloating and leave him and his family alone.

Now, when someone like Malkin calls a conservative out like that, that’s bad news. A conservative has to be really stinking up his party to get the ire of someone like Malkin.

So Domenech resigned, and he’s going to give up the fight, right?

Nope. Instead, in an article printed last night at Human Events Online, he choose to attack his bosses — oh, my bad, his bosses of one week — at The Washington Post for not anticipating the attacks from leftist bloggers.

He seems to be in denial. For that piece, Domenech is still saying that the multiple instances of plagiarism, which have been reported on from publications ranging The Washington Post itself to the National Review Online, could all be explained away.

However, in a statement on his blog last night, and reported at Human Events Online today, he admitted he was guilty of plagiarism.

From a statement titled Contrition he wrote:

I want to apologize to National Review Online, my friends and colleagues here at RedState, and to any others that have been affected over the past few days. I also want to apologize to my previous editors and writers whose work I used inappropriately and without attribution. There is no excuse for this — nor is there an excuse for any obfuscation in my earlier statement.

I am glad that he has admitted his problem, but I can’t resist making one last observation. Does anyone else notice how similar his handling of this issue, as well as his confession, sound like the one given by black journalist, Jayson Blair, about his instances of plagiarism while at The New York Times?

When conservative white bloggers start to sound like Jayson Blair, when conservative bloggers turn on their own, it leaves me with just one final question: Is this April Fool’s Day or what?

About Scott Butki

Scott Butki was a newspaper reporter for more than 10 years before making a career change into education... then into special education. He has been working in mental health for the last ten years. He lives in Austin. He reads at least 50 books a year and has about 15 author interviews each year and, yes, unlike tv hosts he actually reads each one. He is an in-house media critic, a recovering Tetris addict and a proud uncle. He has written articles on practically all topics from zoos to apples and almost everything in between.

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