Decision ‘08

Look, I Don’t Want To Beat This Into the Ground…

…but the first step towards forgiveness is admitting you’re wrong, and that’s something that Ben ‘Augustine’ Domenech is just flat refusing to do:

The biggest bulk of work in question comes from Domenech’s college years at William & Mary. While working at the student newspaper his freshman year, Domenech said, he discovered his editor had been inserting the work of other publications into his movie reviews. He left the job after one semester and went to work for another publication when the editor received a promotion, he said.

“The idea that the attack machine has gotten to the level where they dig back to your freshman year of college, when you’re 17, and say, ‘Hey, this guy should have been thinking about the authority of what he was writing the same way that people do at the New York Times,’ then, I mean, it’s idiotic,” he said. “I certainly was sloppier than I should have been, but the sense that I ever felt this was significant or this was dangerous or that there was ever anything to come out of it is just ridiculous.”

Asked about the voluminous amount of documentation cited by left-wing bloggers and some conservatives’ decision to believe it, Domenech said: “In a lot of this stuff, it’s based on who you believe. And if you believe the lefties are right or if you believe someone who you know and who you’ve worked with is right, I guess the thing I would point out is that I’ve done my best to never do anything to raise any kind of question about this sort of thing. And if you look at the overwhelming bulk of everything I’ve written, you’ll find there is no question about it. The questions are about small things, a lot of them easily explainable, especially the things that come after college.”

Two things need to be said. One: a 17-year old, particularly one of Domenech’s apparent intelligence, kinows that plagiarism is wrong. Period. End of that excuse.

Two: What about this, from the National Review?

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.

Indeed, the plagiarism is indisputable…and the NRO is finding more:

…[S]taff here at National Review Online are going through all of the pieces Ben Domenech has written for us (the most recent of which appears to have been published in 2002) in light of questions raised in the wake of the debut of his “Red America” blog this week on the Washington Post’s website (from which he has since resigned).

Our review unfortunately raises questions about several other pieces besides the one we apologized for this morning…Put alongside other pieces that we’re looking at and that have been linked to elsewhere in the blogosphere, it’s hard not to conclude there was something amiss.

We’re still looking. And again apologize to our readers that this ever happened on our site.

I have no ill will toward Ben, and I don’t confuse his misdeeds with the other Red State honchos, some of whom have been quite generous to me and this blog, and all of whom I intend to continue to read eagerly…but for the sake of his own credibility, Ben needs to apologize, preferably, but at the least, quit blaming the Left for his own failures.

One Response to “Look, I Don’t Want To Beat This Into the Ground…”

1 Gwedd Says:
March 25th, 2006 at 7:54 am
Comrades,

I’m not siding with him here, just pointing out that it would have been nice to see the same sort of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth by our leftist friends when certain other reporters had to step down over recent plagiarism claims.

I swear you could take the leftist screamers to Afghanistan and they’d be mistaken for Mullahs calling for Jihad at friday prayers.

Respects,

Gwedd