It is Bigger than Ben!

Here is a little round-up via the NYT’s (I bet they loved publishing this):

March 25, 2006

Washington Post Blogger Quits After Plagiarism Accusations

By JULIE BOSMAN

A 24-year-old blogger for The Washington Post, Ben Domenech, resigned yesterday after being confronted with evidence that he had plagiarized articles in other publications.

His resignation came after writing six blog items in the three days he worked for Red America, a blog that The Post created to offer a conservative viewpoint on its Web site.

Mr. Domenech — who had worked in the Bush administration and was a founder of the conservative blog RedState.com — came under heavy criticism from liberal bloggers, who called his political views extreme.

They first pointed to previous comments by Mr. Domenech, who recently called Coretta Scott King a "communist."

But by late Thursday, the bloggers had found instances of what appeared to be plagiarism, including an article by Mr. Domenech in The New York Press that contained passages resembling an article that ran on the front page of The Washington Post.

Evidence of one instance of plagiarism first surfaced on the liberal blog Daily Kos on Thursday. A comment posted on the blog said a passage from an article by Mr. Domenech was nearly identical to a chapter from P. J. O'Rourke's book, "Modern Manners: An Etiquette Book for Rude People."

Other articles that contained passages that appeared to be copied were published in National Review Online, The New York Press and The Flat Hat, the student newspaper at the College of William and Mary, which Mr. Domenech attended.

Jim Brady, the executive editor of The Washington Post Web site, said that he knew that Mr. Domenech would be controversial but that a background check before he was hired did not reveal plagiarism.

"We've been catching a lot of grief on the blogs for not catching this ourselves, but obviously plagiarism is hard to spot," Mr. Brady said. He said The Post planned to hire another conservative blogger in Mr. Domenech's place.

I have waited to post about this debacle because I have been mulling over something about it that I think is bigger than one kid who wrote incendiary commentary and plagiarized. You know on a certain level I really can’t blame Ben Domenech for stealing other people’s work. He obviously doesn’t know better and I blame it on the culture in which he was raised and has lived in. He is a young Republican Apparatchik and I am sure aspires to be just like the grownups of his Party.

Now those grownups he emulates lie about everything. I won’t bore you with the litany, such as WMD, Aluminum tubes, Mobile Chemical Labs, Treasury notes backing Social Security are Worthless, Torture, Warrentless Wiretapping of Americans, etc., etc., but they also steal others' ideas, strategy and hatemongering manipulation techniques.

Take Karl Rove that famous uniter. He has stolen his whole game plan from one of the most important propagandists of this century: Joseph Goebbels. His entire strategy for the Republican Dominance of this Country, if not the World, is based on Goebbels ideas and techniques. The Goebbels’ idea of using fear and the big lie repeated over and over to divide the populous has been worked to death by this administration. And just like in Weimar Germany it has been very successful here in the United States of America.

So, is it even slightly surprising that this young man raised by grownup apparatchiks that he would engage in the same behavior? I think not.

What is horrifying is that the grownups at the Washingtonpost.com didn’t find this disturbing. Not only did they not find it disturbing they wrapped their arms around it and embraced it. I guess that I am assuming that there are grownups at the WAPO who have any kind of historical memory, understanding or curiosity.

That they felt compelled to have a far-right “conservative” voice on their website is very upsetting as they did not feel the need to have a far-left voice on their website. Now why is that and who are they trying to appease? Do they think for a minute that Dan Froomkin’s White House Briefing, Joel Achenbach’s Achenblog, or William Arkin’s Early Warning are far-left apparatchiks?

There are right-wing and or conservative folks on the WAPO site. The editorial page is run by Fred Hiatt, not exactly a liberal Democrat, and there is George Will, Charles Krauthammer, and Robert Samuelson, again not exactly liberal Democrats, not to mention far-left. In fact these folks have supported this radical administration until recently when it became an embarrassment for them and things started to really go south from their point of view.

So, exactly what kind of balance was Jim Brady trying to achieve by hiring a hatemonger and an inexperienced and plagiarizing one at that? Just exactly who were they appealing to, not conservatives that’s for sure, as they already have a conservative voice and following?

One look at Ben’s blog community would have warned off anyone with an ounce of integrity, or sense for that matter. Did anyone at the Post look at the comments section to see who they would be appealing to, and if not, why not? Was the WAPO really interested in cultivating a racist, homophobic, and radically authoritarian audience?

Now I refer to this administration as radical because I look to history and therefore I am not at all shocked by what and who Ben is and represents. He is one of the young brown shirt kids that indulge in hate and fabrication. And the adult apparatchiks whose behavior he emulates and plagiarizes have been very successful in the not so distant past and apparently the present.

Now, I am much older than Jim Brady at the post.com, so for me it isn’t the distant past.

Take a little walk though the past with me, won’t you, while I make some comparisons and connect some dots to our present situation.

Weimar Germany January 1933 = USA December 2000

Hindenburg Appoints Chancellor = U.S. Supreme Court Appoints President

Reichstag Fire = Destruction of the Twin Towers and Pentagon Attack

Communists = Terrorists

Jews (Semites) = Arabs (Semites)

Enabling Act = Patriot Act

Treason = Dissent

Poland = Iraq

Dictatorial Powers = Dictatorial Powers

Now this may seem a little over the top to some. But, if you look at history you see a pattern developing. When my young nephew came back from his visit to the Holocaust Museum he wasn’t shocked by the results of Germany’s Third Reich (he knew the results.) He was, however, shocked by how Weimar Germany became the Third Reich. He saw a clear pattern and connected it to what is happening right now and right here. Now that he was able to connect these dots could be that as a brown skinned person he is clear that he is at risk. And that was before this Executive made clear that he is above the law and free to engage in Torture, etc.

I am reminded of Benito Mussolini’s equating Fascism with Corporatism. The implications have been explored by Harper’s, no less. And I find it hard to believe that anyone who is paying attention thinks that this Administration is anything less than Corporatist (think Halliburton, et al.) Then, of course, there is always Huey Long who is purported to have said that Fascism when it came to America would be wrapped in the flag. And lest we forget the sage Samuel Johnson’s point “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” Now this administration is corporatist, has wrapped itself in the flag and questioned all dissenter’s patriotism.

Hell, when there is a dialogue going on at the World Association of International Studies, which is under the auspices of the Hoover Institute, a Right-Wing Think Tank, about these comparisons it might be time to stand up, pay attention, and DO SOMETHING!

Which brings us back to the little brown shirted Ben and the Washingtonpost.com gig he was given. It seems to me that at this point in time the “DO SOMETHING” isn’t to appease those who engage in and support the abuse of power. It seems to me the “DO SOMETHING” is, as a news organization, to expose the abuses and not enable them.

My rant for today is over, but not ended!

And now for my two readers, who frankly like to see the lighter side of life, Greg Mitchell at Editor & Publisher has provided it for them, and I know they are grateful.

Mr. Mitchell ponders the new hire at Washingtonpost.com as they search for a replacement for the hateful and plagiarizing Ben. He believes he has found the perfect candidate: George W. Bush.

Says Mr. Mitchell:

(March 25, 2006) -- The Washington Post announced last night (play along with me here, folks) that President George W. Bush had agreed to replace Ben Domenech as the “Red America” blogger at the newspaper’s popular Web site. Bush contributed his first Web posting today, in which he thanked his old rival, Al Gore, for “inventing the internets.”

Domenech had been forced out Friday amid charges of rampant plagiarism. Jim Brady, executive editor of washingtonpost.com, said that he was searching for a conservative to replace Domenech, but the quick Bush hiring still came as a surprise. A Post spokesman said, "Last time we hired someone for that blog who had worked for the White House. So why not go straight to the top?"

The spokesman said the Post was confident the president had never plagiarized because “he hasn’t written anything himself since college”--but this time, unlike in the Domenech case, “we spent a few minutes googling just to make sure.” He added that the Post does not screen bloggers for “misleading statements or outright lies” in their past.

Asked how the president could blog and govern at the same time, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan explained, “He has promised to stay up late each night, until 10 p.m., to work on it—in his pajamas, as is customary for bloggers, we understand.”

Brady had hoped to hire a real reporter this time, but the Post apparently decided it could not pass up another partisan non-journalist. Bush, in his opening post today, claimed that he was not really all that partisan, since he “disagrees with the president" on certain issues, citing the Harriett Miers appointment and the Dubai port deal.

Press Secretary McClellan said he was “fairly sure” that Bush, unlike Domenech, had never called Coretta Scott King a “communist” when she died since, “after all, he did attend her funeral,” but “you never know.”

He added that the White House had convinced the Post that Bush, contrary to rumor, had not made inflammatory remarks posting under the name “Bluto” at National Review Online.

Asked about the ethics of the president receiving pay from the Post, McClellan explained that the money would be donated to charity--Neil Bush's software company.

Read the rest it might lift your spirits, or not! Because, when the Washington Post hires people like BD for “balance,” this is obviously bigger than Little Ben’s threat to our Democracy.

History: learn from it or relive it!