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The Fall of Ben D(over)
Mar. 29th, 2006 09:07 pmIf you're a political news junkie, you've probably already heard about the blog-induced downfall of Ben Domenech. In addition to all the other lovely qualities that I mentioned in my previous post, he's a serial plagiarist - who even stole movie reviews from liberal sources like Salon! If he thinks they're so evil (and he does), why repeat their unholy views on important cultural matters? Isn't that just helping the liberal Hollywood agenda?
Poor Ben had to apologize twice. In the first apology, he blamed his editors for doing it all and tried to claim it was a teenage indiscretion. Of course, these claims were untrue. It's hard to know what led to the second, more abject, apology. Public criticism from conservative sources may have helped.
From my viewpoint, this got little coverage in the regular media, yet the heat on Ben and the Washington Post was intense. The blogosphere did what it can do well; many people were able to cooperate, track down and share information, and accomplish something.
For those not paying attention, the world is the same as it was pre-Ben. He was on stage for an instant, but now he's gone. There was a brief torrent of commentary which too is gone. Why were the political junkies worried? It's over, right? There are times when I'd like to recapture that viewpoint (and the time I spend reading about this stuff), but I don't think I can go back. Not till we've got a much better government.
It's not too late to play though, you could ask the Washington Post what the hell they thought they were doing. More on that opportunity here:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200603280003
Poor Ben had to apologize twice. In the first apology, he blamed his editors for doing it all and tried to claim it was a teenage indiscretion. Of course, these claims were untrue. It's hard to know what led to the second, more abject, apology. Public criticism from conservative sources may have helped.
From my viewpoint, this got little coverage in the regular media, yet the heat on Ben and the Washington Post was intense. The blogosphere did what it can do well; many people were able to cooperate, track down and share information, and accomplish something.
For those not paying attention, the world is the same as it was pre-Ben. He was on stage for an instant, but now he's gone. There was a brief torrent of commentary which too is gone. Why were the political junkies worried? It's over, right? There are times when I'd like to recapture that viewpoint (and the time I spend reading about this stuff), but I don't think I can go back. Not till we've got a much better government.
It's not too late to play though, you could ask the Washington Post what the hell they thought they were doing. More on that opportunity here:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200603280003
