Bomb Throwing Pacifist

Oh this is too, too rich. For those of you not always immersed in the joys of the Internets, there is quite the little scandal currently developing in the Right side of the blogosphere.

So basically, rewind back to about two weeks ago. The Washington Post, in an attempt to balance out some kind of perceived imbalance in their journalism decide to hire a guy by the name of Ben Domenech to blog his serially paranoid and neocon-bordering on fascist- views for the world to see. 24 years of age, a graduate of William and Mary (my alma mater), and already boasting an impressive resume as a speechwriter and intern on capitol hill (how on earth a 24 year-old got such comfy positions without polishing some serious old white and rich knob is beyond me, but whatever. It's not like incompetence and cronyism is anything new in the GOP). Yet another attempt on the part of the mainstream media to fit in with the hip kids over at Fox News in the "lookie lookie! We can be patriotic too" arena if you ask me. You can find this blog here.

Among other doozies, he accused Coretta Scott King of being a Communist on the day of her funeral and in the same breath bitched that while W decided to attend her interring, he could only be bothered to call in an message of support to some pro-life group. Its bad enough that this guy's a dyed in the wool racist, but the fact that the WaPo would actually see fit to hire such an asshat on the grounds that they need to bring "balance" to their institution and allow him to blog under their banner is nothing short of despicable. Well, young Mr. Domenech's career may be over soon. Because faster than you can say "holy hot military escorts, Jeff Gannon!" fearless researchers on the left side of the aisle have discovered that Ben hasn't exactly been a paragon of journalistic integrity. Apparently he's a plagarist as well and spent a lot of time copying chunks of published work wholesale when he was writing columns for the William and Mary student newspaper, the Flat Hat (which, I might add, featured my old roomate Dan Schumacher as editor in cheif for a number of years). Your Logo Here, Kos, Obsidian Wings, and Sadly, No! have the stories.

Hey Ben, last time I checked, William and Mary had a very strict policy regarding plagarism. It'd be a shame for such a promising young man's career to be cut short so early by such nasty things as having one's degree revoked. I will reproduce the relevant text from the honor code below for your convenience.

The term "assignment" includes any work, required or volunteered, and submitted to a faculty member for review and/or academic credit, or any work, required or volunteered, submitted for publication in a College-sponsored or other publication, or any work, required or volunteered, submitted for use in conjunction with a College-sponsored event or activity. All academic work undertaken by a student must be completed independently unless the faculty member or other responsible authority expressly authorizes collaboration with another.

Plagiarism occurs when a student, with intent to deceive or with reckless disregard for proper scholarly procedures, presents any information, ideas or phrasing of another as if they were his or her own and does not give appropriate credit to the original source. Proper scholarly procedures require that all quoted material be identified by quotation marks or indentation on the page, and the source of information and ideas, if from another, must be identified and be attributed to that source. Students are responsible for learning proper scholarly procedure. While any amount of improperly unattributed material may be sufficient to find plagiarism, a student may be presumed to have acted with intent to deceive or with reckless disregard for proper scholarly procedures when a significant amount of improperly unattributed material is presented as if it were the student's own work. In the absence of direct proof of the accused's intent, the hearing panel shall determine whether the amount of improperly unattributed material is so significant that intent may be presumed.

That had to hurt...

UPDATE: Wow, that didn't take long. Ben Domenech's blog, Red America, was officially shut down at 1:17 p.m. this afternoon after he resigned amidst a rapidly escalating plagarism scandal. So much for Ben's 72-hour career with WaPo. Details from the announcement below.
Plagiarism is perhaps the most serious offense that a writer can commit or be accused of. Washingtonpost.com will do everything in its power to verify that its news and opinion content is sourced completely and accurately at all times.

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.

Well, I'd say getting no-talent asshats like Domenech out of their cush Washington Post offices is indeed a powerful positive turn. As Steam might sing, Na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na, heyy-eyyy-heyy...GOODBYE!