Friday, March 24, 2006

Stages of Grieving

Denial:

The charges of plagarism are false, meant to bring down a good and honest man. The presented facts to prove plagarism are specious -- products of shoddy work.
Anger:
The bitterness, despondancy, and hopelessness of their movement can now only manifest itself as hate. Pure hate, prejudicial attacks, and rampant accusations are their message. Their platform incubated at the safe havens of Daily Kos, MyDD, and Atrios. Thousands of satellite blogs and message boards anxiously awaiting a dispatch from this "Axis of Idiocy", and faithfully linking and emailing without a modicum of sanity checking.
Bargaining:
Assume, for a moment, that the plagiarism charge is true. For the sake of argument, assume that. Now, having accepted this, what are we left with?
1. It is the sole critique of Domenech by the left with any objective merit.

2. It does not have much merit, as the profferred examples are:
-- Old, dating wholly from Domenech's teen years.
-- Confined wholly to movie reviews.
Depression:
The charges of plagiarism are serious business, especially the one in NRO. It may be happening at this very writing, but a complete and timely response is needed by the co-founder of this site, answering fully every charge made. I count myself a supporter of Ben Domenech, but the credibility of this site and the Redstate project is at risk.
Acceptance:
I've looked at the evidence, and though I don't like what it tells me, I won't close my eyes to it: Domenech is guilty, and the worst part of it all is the fact that he has demonstrated serial tendencies - this isn't an isolated deal. The only honorable response in this situation is to remove Domenech from the masthead/editorship of RedState. Can any other conceivable option be entertained for a plagiarist? Obviously he should still be allowed to post or write diaries like any other member, but I would be deeply hesitant to promote to the front page, given that it would inevitably appear to be a tacit endorsement.

7 comments:

Dirk Gently said...

nicely put.

watertiger said...

Elizabeth Kubler Ross - she was such a kidder!

agpoo? my word verification is "agpoo"?!

Anonymous said...

Extraordinary!
.

Interrobang said...

Well done, Mr. Jeffers.

I'm only commenting here because I cracked up about Watertiger's word-verification string, but I thought I'd append some praise as well.

FYI, mine is "opphflu," which sounds like someone spitting out a mouthful of something rancid. *grin*

Paul Dirks said...

I am just pleasantly surprised by how quickly this is all going down. Unlike watching Scooter Libby twist in the wind for months, this takedown was completed in a matter of hours!

Phila said...

Xan,

Your wish is my command!

And my confirming word is "Espuxca," which is very evocative, I think.

Ellie Finlay said...

That was wonderful, Phila. Thank you.