Thanks Ben
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Bad Decisions, BloggingWell, the Red America blog is no more and plagiarism brought it down. That’s right…Ben Domenech has resigned due to some heavy pressures from the left, the right, and probably his own conscience.
This looks bad for bloggers, right? Well, as the executive editor of washingtonpost.com explains…
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.
So does this say anything about the right wing? Well, only if you want it to say anything. Me, I think this is a testament to the self-correcting system that is the blogosphere.
In short, Ben’s loss is our gain.
Thanks Ben.
MORE
Looks like Domenech is defending himself, which is completely understandable, but this passage in particular stuck in my craw.
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.
Wow, those are three remarkable paragraphs. Do you trust me…Well, I did it…But I was right once before!
Honestly, I don’t think Ben is sorry whatsoever. In fact, he’ll use this incident to only further embolden his partisan stances, as this long, tired screed against the left suggests.
Red America, good riddance.
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March 24th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
There’s plagiarism, and then there’s this:
Neither is acceptable to me.
March 24th, 2006 at 5:55 pm
Agreed.
But honestly, we’re talking about a few looneys here and there. They do not speak for the left, nor will they ever. They speak for their own sick minds and that’s it. Just like those on the right who attack and intimidate those on the left don’t speak for conservatives.
Also, not many sites have the time nor the want to moderate any comments, and I don’t think Atrios should have to answer for something one of his commenters said. The guy gets like 300 comments on average per post. Same with Daily Kos. But even still, I’ve seen Kos delete posters who he had been alerted to who had been spreading really crazy conspiracy theories. But honestly, there aren’t enough hours in the day to moderate all these comments.
In fact, a good example of this is in the tech blog world. THE top tech blogger, Rober Scoble, doesn’t moderate his comments. Anybody can post anything they want. And he never deletes anything, no matter how disgusting or vile.
In short, it works both ways, so for Ben to use this as if it’s something new and surprising, and then to attempt to paint the ENTIRE left with this brush is disingenuous.
But does it make what the commenters said okay? Again, absolutely not.
March 24th, 2006 at 6:14 pm
Don’t you have a responsibility, if you create a public space and claim ownership of it, to police it? If you open a bar and it becomes a nuisance and a hang-out for criminals, is that not your fault because you’re too busy to police it?
So Kos has the time to ban people whose theories he doesn’t accept, but not people who slander, threaten and libel? I wouldn’t want to be him trying to explain the ethics of that.
March 24th, 2006 at 6:30 pm
I feel Donklephant does, but if we get a steady surge in traffic and start to become much more popular, that could have to fall to the wayside. Seriously, a lot of larger blogs are like this. And it’s a generally accepted practice in the blogosphere to let people say whatever the hell they want. Donklephant is actually unique in this respect.
Not accepting the theories is not the point, and you’re reading way too much into that. It’s not like he’s reading everything and saying, “Oh! That one has to go!!!” This simply comes down to a matter of time. I’m sure Kos does police now and then, but to put together the type of operation they have, it’s difficult, if not impossible to read even 1/20th the comments they get. What you’d hope for is that the commenters who post often are high caliber and make the idiots feel unwelcome or else report them. And as Kos has shown, he’ll boot some if they get way out of line.
In short, it’s like trying to herd cats, and I commend any site as big as Kos for policing any comments. Seriously, when I was reading them regularly, they’d get 20 people commenting and saying “I’m first!” in the first 20 seconds. And then posts would end up with around 500 comments. Trying to control or moderate that would literally take more time than there is in the day.
March 24th, 2006 at 6:38 pm
So do you feel the same about LGF, which seems to have the same issues?
Maybe it’s my newsprint background, but I would not find that at all acceptable. You made it, you own it, you take care of it. If you can’t, find someone who can, or else restrict access. Even if we in the media allow space to someone libeling someone else (in a letter to the editor, say), we’re potentially guilty of libel.
This goes to the question of, are blogs media or not? If we want the same access, we have to accept the same rule-set.
Winds of Change produces a lovely leftist reaction to the Redstate thing, from a Matt Stoller, unknown to me by that name, who says:
I’m seeing far more of that type of reaction from the left than I’m seeing defenses of plagiarism from the right. His friends stood by him. Very well. But if you look at sites like Captain’s Quarters or Winds of Change, they’re very clear on the plagiarism issue. As any writer ought to be. I’ve been plagiarized, too, a few times. It’s not a happy feeling. All depends on what you read, I guess.
March 24th, 2006 at 6:58 pm
In a world where just about everything written is accessible via the Internet, all writers need to be VERY careful with who they quote and how they attribute.
But I can’t see how this one writer’s integrity issues reveals anything about conservatives or bloggers. Anyone can have integrity issues.
March 24th, 2006 at 7:18 pm
Oh, absolutely. It’s an amazingly hard job policing that stuff. And as Donklephant grows, I have some ideas and policies I’ll be putting into place to make sure the conversations here don’t devolve into LGF and Daily Kos territory.
And concerning this comment…
Regardless of which side they’re on, these ad hominems always say much more about the commenter than they do the subject.
Cal, I urge you to not fall into a trap and believe that this is what left America looks like. This guy doesn’t speak for liberals, he speaks for his own narrow view of conservatives and their blogs. A small subset indeed.
March 24th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
One of the interesting sidelights to this is that a number of the “gotchas” turned out to be cases where the same writer, this Ben character, had written both stories, one of them under a pseudonym. It’s obviously not plagiarism if you steal from yourself (unless you sold those right already).
But I bet this is more common on the Internet than many people realize. It’s a pitfall awaiting the would-be silencers.
March 24th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
So then, I guess, some of Ben Domenech’s detractors do, in fact, suck.
March 24th, 2006 at 7:59 pm
Oh yeah. Some do. But the blanket statement that attempted to defend Ben was ridiculous. I guess it’s simply par for course in the extreme blogosphere.
March 24th, 2006 at 10:28 pm
You are both right … not being a pro writer I don’t struggle with the issue of .. Gee, did I just think this up, damn, I should use it …. I read so much from so many different places and realize that I am influenced by much in my thought processes.
Being more of an observer that a contributor, let me give you both a perspective that is observation rather than passion. Most people in the blogosphere ar looking for information and opinions to help them learn, expand their understanding and provide a path for either affirmation or a path for change. I can’t tell either of you anything in a judgmental sense where Ben is concerned because I have caught the back end of the significant bullshit attacks on his character. I have seen people attacked, maligned and denigrated in the past for what amounted to a mistake in judgment … never having had any real opportunity to retrace what has happened before the circling sharks smell blood and rip them apart. what I have seen today smacks of that somewhat.
Cal has defended a freind, which is admirable, but may be slightly over invesed in it because of personal attachment. Justin seems to be invested in Ben doing the right thing from a peofessional standpoint … and it seems like Ben has done that so I would point out to Justin that Ben HAS shown character, albeit a little late for Justin’s taste. Now, Ben needs to recover and decide how to move forward and regain his integrity (personally and professionally) and I am sure he will. His first priority was to consider his family. Those idiots from the the extrem,e left who mounted what can only be described as a concerted, Swiftboat type attack should all pound sand, and I would bet even money that there were plenty of professional skanks among that hourde. I don’t make those comments lightly, because a commentor on this and several other blogs I have never seen such a concerted effort to destroy someone.
I followed all of the links and read this stuff in detail today. I can’t pretend that I am capable or knowlegable enough to defnd BEn, or to chastise Ben. I watched others do that and maybe I didn’t understand all of it … but I know BULLSHIT when I read it.
He did what he had to do … so it is time to leave him alone.
Lastly, I will make another observation. Cal, continue to stand by your friend. Justin, if someone attacks you (validly or invalidly) look around to make sure you have a Cal (or two) in your corner.
March 25th, 2006 at 12:30 am
You know, I once did plagiarize something, inadvertently. And it was mortifying when I discovered it.
It was the last line of a history book I wrote. I was pulling out from the place I had written about for 800 pages, and writing the closure almost like a camera shot, spiraling up into the night, trying to be Ginny Lee Burton-like, “Beowulf,” cinematic, visual. And I described somewhere in the distance the sound of a horse-drawn wagon rolling over a wooden plank bridge and wrote that it was a sound that seemed to travel further than any other at night.
Since I have lived among the Amish I didn’t stop to think whether that line was my own or not. I remember hearing that sound many times and thinking that thought many times.
But then years after the book was published, I was reading something — something I knew I had read before — and I encountered the same thought, in almost the same 10 or 11 words. The damned thing is, now I can’t remember anymore where it was — “Walden” maybe? Perhaps a piece of poetry. But I had absorbed it so deeply, and refracted it so often through my own experiences, that it felt like mine when I wrote it.
Not that this has anything to do with Ben D. I’m just continuing to download my pecadillos in case the Kossacks come after me someday.
March 25th, 2006 at 1:19 am
Hey, ya know what…this is the perfect place to do it. In fact, why not do a post about it where you talk about what you may or may not have done. I think it would be interesting.
As far as Ben goes, yes, let’s let him be.
March 25th, 2006 at 1:33 am
I’m coming to this discussion a little late, so I don’t have anything new to add on the Ben Domenech as Plagiarist story. If this guy has exhibited a pattern of stealing other’s work then it’s unacceptable and good riddance. If not, and it’s really just the product of a character attach from the left, then let me say that the writing on Red America poor and uninformative anyway.
What I do want to do is disagree with Justin’s assertion that this could be a good thing for the blogoshpere. The Washington Post gave a blogger, Ben Domenech, a forum to air his views. What he gave the Washington Post was embarrassment and a headache. Regardless of what they might be saying in their statements, the lesson I think they learned is that sticking their neck into blogging invites attacks from other bloggers, especially if they want to address real political issues. My guess is that the next Washington Post blog, if there is one, will look a lot like the 360 Blog on CNN, all fluff.
I’ll admit though, my background is in business rather than journalism (where I have no experience). Am I just looking at this wrong?
March 25th, 2006 at 4:38 am
Yes.
No, really it’s an understandable position, but it’s not just a smear job by the left. They wouldn’t be able to really touch Ben if he had been honest. But he wasn’t. Sure, the left would have called him a moron, but they wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it unless Ben did something to be found out.
Thanks for thoughts.
March 25th, 2006 at 11:02 am
but it’s not just a smear job by the left. They wouldn’t be able to really touch Ben if he had been honest. But he wasn’t. Sure, the left would have called him a moron, but they wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it unless Ben did something to be found out.
I disagree, Justin, there was a definitive smear campaign. I think that the bloogers who were offended by the plagairism spoke to that topic with economic clarity regarding the act itself. The rest of it had little to do with the issue at hand. Easily 90%+ of the stuff that I reas resembled a catatonic crowd in the big city screaming for the guy on the hi-rise ledge to …….. jump, jump, please jump!
That is the best description that I can give as evidence that every site is going to need “blog police” to retain focus. This has the potential to negate the blogoshere as a com-tool in the ’06 elections.
March 25th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
Yes, I agree. In certain ways it bears a similarity to the Jeff Gannon case (or whatever the hell his real name turned out to be). First the lefties got all over him because he did GAY PORN! It was a screaming green light for Internet fag-bashing. Then his questionable credentials came up, and suddenly the issue was a sober-sided concern for professionalism.
Same here: two issues. The legitimate disqualifying charge of plagiarism came second. First came the attempt to bury the man in as much harrassment and verbal feces as the organized left could pile on him. Which included attempts to chill him into silence by real or veiled threats to his life and his loved ones.
Justin says, “oh, well, just ignore that; it’s only a small minority of leftists who did that.” But only a small minority of Muslims flew jetliners into buildings on 9/11. Doesn’t mean Islam doesn’t have a problem. And it doesn’t mean we don’t have a problem with them.
Not to harp on Justin, but when I bring up Kos, Atrios, Talkingpoints, etc., — the ones who rallied the gang-tackle on Domenech — he urges me to turn away from them as not representative of the loyal opposition in America. Yet when I read the listings of most popular blogs, there they are (along with “Boing Boing”) as the top leftward sites. Now, blogs are not the same as reality, but there is a rough overlay and you have to think, if their bloated numbers don’t represent the mainstream of the oipposition, they do represent the mainstream of … something. What else is it?
March 25th, 2006 at 1:00 pm
Could be.
March 25th, 2006 at 4:47 pm
Yeah, well, he also said he got permission from P.J. O’Rourke to use one of his pieces.
March 25th, 2006 at 6:29 pm
It wasn’t gay porn. He was a male escort. I see this as a big difference. One is legal, the other is decidedly illegal.
Ann Coulter printed somebody’s home address and phone number several months back and that woman got death threats, etc. This is not a symptom of “the left”, this is a symptom of extremism. You can find it on BOTH sides of the aisle, so please…for honesty’s sake…let’s quit acting as if the right side of the blogosphere’s hands are clean too. They’re not. I mean, this issue is exactly why I created our site in the first place. I’m sick of this type of nonsense from BOTH sides.
And by the way, how many of you believe that Ben would have said he had gotten death threats, etc., if this plagiarism thing hadn’t came up?
I think he knows, as do most high profile political commentators, that when you get to a certain level the crazies start coming out of the woodwork. Ultimately you just have to live your life. And personally, I’d like to see these threats so Ben can expose THE people who wrote them. Let’s discredit the individuals, not an entire side of the debate. That’s why I have a problem with Ben’s accusations, because it’s wide and broad and he knows exactly what he’s doing.
Sure, as you could point to comments on the right from the LGF’s, the Michael Savages and the Ann Coulters of the world and paint the entire right as such.
But hey, let the right and left side of the blogosphere continue to discredit themselves with their slander and venom. The middle will be waiting to fill the credibility void that they leave.
March 26th, 2006 at 3:53 am
Well, it seems to be your job to point out the hypocrisies and excesses of the right, so I’ll take the same role for the left. Your initial reaction to the Domenech thing was to mock him for feeling attacked.
Look at the “partisan hacks” tagline here. Your partisan hacks, leaving aside posts attacking the thing generally, are:
Ben Domenech (twice)
Dean Esmay
Ann Coulter (twice)
Bill O’Reilly
Tucker Carlson
William Kristol (twice)
Bill Bennett
Robert Novak (twice)
John Gibson of Fox News
Power Line, conservative/GOP blog
All on the right: on the left:
Moveon.org
To read this, then, you’d think there was a ratio of something like 14-1. Calling attention to the left’s excesses seems to me to balance that, and it is not at all the same thing as saying anyone else’s hands are clean.
March 26th, 2006 at 8:41 am
Go to your neutral corners … meet in the center of the ring and learn the rules of engagement …. focus on the contest …. pay no attention to the shouts from your opponents corner …. you will hear unbelievable vitriole from the fans as their passions rise(from the front row to the back row, to your left and to your right, depending on your relative postion in the ring) …. pay no attention … focus on the fight …. if by chance you hit below the belt, take the deducted point with humility …. then, focus on the fight at hand ….. when it is over …. win, lose or draw … embrace your opponent with deep respect for he desrerves that for putting himself at the same risk as yourself …… some of the fans will not be happy with the outcome, but remember this [they have stood on the sideline shouting epitaphs because they like to watch the fight, not risk in the fight … and they are entitled, for they purchased a ticket …. and you invited them to do that ….. keep your head up and train harder for the next bout.
An analogy for blogs .. from a dedicated fan.
March 26th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
Thank you, GN, Marquiss of Queensbloggy. It’s just that I’m never sure whether we’re supposed to be doing an acrobatic balancing act here, or pulling on the same tow-rope to raise up a solid political center, or sparring over the issues of the day in hopes of finding the sturdier arguments.
March 26th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
Might as well bring the episode up to speed.
March 26th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
Try that again.
March 26th, 2006 at 4:49 pm
Ben has become a man today (with a black eye) and a significant gift of fans … and therefore … doesn’t need WaPo … In future endeavors when he needs to recruit assistance on a project, he will LOOK for people who have had bruises and black eyes. Wisdom always comes from action. Your freind has shown himself well.
March 26th, 2006 at 5:25 pm
Note to Cal, …. It’s just that I’m never sure whether we’re supposed to be doing an acrobatic balancing act here, or pulling on the same tow-rope to raise up a solid political center, or sparring over the issues of the day in hopes of finding the sturdier arguments.
I hope we are supposed to speak our minds on whatever topic with real thoughts. I don’t think we are supposed to win … or lose. My hope is that when I speak freely and openly that has an impact. Sometimes that impact might be agreement from one or more commentors. More often than not I am forced to look at my beliefs and often modify them to some extent.You have made me think hard sometimes … so has Justin .. ASC and MR. I am not so sure that I want to pulled anywhere in particular …. I think that the xleft and xright have screamed loud enough to show that as an empty goal …. but I think that reasonable debate, and more importantly, reasonable consideration of other views might cause a melding process to begin … and hopefully bring a stronger center view to the surface.
I posted a comment some time back inwhich I compared the current state of political norm to the geometry of a bell curve superimposed over … well, a bell … meaning that the outer edges of the bell are much smaller in capacity and the rise to the apex is more dense (more centrists exist than xlefts or xrights) In terms of sounding a bell, the outer fringes are louder and harsher than the middle tones where there is more density. We are due for softer tones in America … we just have to teach ourselves how to hit the center more often … that requires left and right.
March 26th, 2006 at 5:27 pm
Sorry … I posted a comment sometime back on the Mighty Middle in ….
March 26th, 2006 at 7:29 pm
Cal, please don’t play “gotcha” with me. It’s tiring. And honestly, you’re pointing out an inconsistency that you yourself take part in, and are a bigger offender than I ever have been on this site. But as far as my “balance” goes, I’ve also called voices on the left out like Dean, Durbin, Galloway, Hackett, Kerry and more that I can’t remember right off the top of my head. How many on the right have you called out? Frankly, I don’t care, but if you’re gonna do the gotcha thing, I’d look at your own posting history first before you call me out on something like that again.
As far as a ratio goes, well, I’m a liberal and I’m going to see more right-wing voices as potentially hackish. That’s understandable I think. But that doesn’t mean that sites like Daily Kos represent mainstream liberal thought. Otherwise, Howard Dean or Dennis Kucinich would have been going up against Bush in 2004.
By the way, that apology from Ben you linked to was great. I wish that he had done that in the first place, but even still…he’s definitely gained some of my respect back.
March 26th, 2006 at 9:46 pm
I’ve also called voices on the left out like Dean, Durbin, Galloway, Hackett, Kerry and more that I can’t remember right off the top of my head.
Kennedy, even though you were WRONG :)
March 26th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
Oh yeah, I called out Robert Kennedy too on his Kartina comments and it was even under the partisan hacks section! Is that what you were talking about Phillip?
March 27th, 2006 at 1:24 am
But Justin, this is your site. You set the agenda, and I react to it, trying in my own way to make it something that resembles “centrist.” We should trade for a week: You exclusively go after the left, and I’ll go after the right.
And I’m never sure what rules we’re playing by. You say I play “gotcha.” What do you mean? To me, “gotcha” is setting a trap. This is just a matter of counting the record. That’s a legitimate way to illustrate a point. I didn’t urge you to post one way or another. If I’ve counted 14-to-1 wrong, in that category, not counting your posts that cut both ways, show me!
Personally, I would have loved to have seen Dennis Kucinich as the nominee. THAT would have been a national debate. I also would have liked to have seen him as president — as long as there was a “rewind” button we could hit and start over again with a different outcome after things got as bad as I think they would have with him at the helm.
Yes, of course it is. So the question is, do you want your site to be liveral or centrist? And if the latter, how does that happen?
March 27th, 2006 at 9:06 am
Oh yeah, I called out Robert Kennedy too on his Kartina comments and it was even under the partisan hacks section! Is that what you were talking about Phillip?
Yup. I got into it with both you and Cal over that one, I remember.
March 27th, 2006 at 12:30 pm
See, I see this as our site, not simply mine. In this way, the agenda is set by us all. We point out weaknesses and strengths of both political ideologies, and highlight places where we can agree. It’s a messy process, but one worth exploring I think since we represent the majority of politcal thought in this country, not the fringe blogosphere. And I believe, over time, the voices balance each other out and the conversation is richer because both sides talk in an atmosphere of openness.
I mean, do you really think the bloggers who post here would do so if they didn’t feel it was a place where centrist thought was appreciated and fostered? Look around you dude, this IS a centrist site and we have some of the best centrist bloggers contributing. That doesn’t happen because it’s run by a hypocrite.
To the whole “gotcha” thing, I don’t think it has to be a baited trap. When you go through my previous posts in ONE category, try to find some sort of “partisan” ratio and then attempt to paint me as some sort of hypocrite, I don’t appreciate it. And you weren’t even correct. Also, it’s not up to me to prove your false conclusions wrong. I provided you with names…you know how to search…so go to it if you’re interested. Me, I’m not. I think it’s pointless.
By the way, weren’t we talking about Ben Domenech’s partisan hackish leanings, his plagiarism and his attempts to smear the left to make himself look better post-scandal? And I think that after he submitted that second apology, you should really stop calling me out on this since he pretty much admitted his first apology was crap.