March 24, 2006, - 5:34 pm
Other Conservatives Got Away with Plagiarism
By
The blogosphere is abuzz with news that now-deposed WashingtonPost.com conservative blogger Ben Domenech was outed for multiple instances of plagiarism.
I hate plagiarism, since I’ve been plagiarized so many times and feel violated with each instance. As I’ve , imitation is NOT always the sincerest form of flattery. It’s the most dishonest form of robbery. At least an armed robber has the guts and decency to tell you to your face that he’s stealing from you.
My problem with the piling-on of Ben Domenech is not that he doesn’t deserve it. He does. It’s that so many right-wingers–and left-wingers–that are calling him to task don’t have a problem with much more prominent conservative plagiarists. That’s hypocrisy.
When I pointed out, not too long ago, that whole portions of a column I wrote were , co-author of the best-selling Swift Boat veterans book against John Kerry, his WorldNetDaily.com editor, Joseph Farah, refused to do a damn thing (but add a tiny link to my column–Big Deal).
Some conservatives told me to “take one for the team.” Huh? I don’t think so. (Since then, I’ve been told by several conservative writers that this is not the first time that WND and/or Farah have condoned–and engaged in–plagiarism.) Since Corsi has a Ph.D. and has written more than one book, how much of those are also plagiarized? People don’t become plagiarists in their old age.
Then, there’s , formerly of FOX News Channel, now on MSNBC, and with a radio show on WABC in New York. She’s the white, blonde Jayson Blair in a skirt. But unlike the loud calls for his firing by conservatives everywhere, there is not even a peep from conservatives about thief Monica Crowley. (Details of her blatant plagiarism are here and here.)
For an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Crowley lifted whole passages about President Nixon from a Paul Johnson article in Commentary. She never admitted to it. She’s banned from the Wall Street Journal because of it. But that’s the only damage.
Even though she’s written two books on Nixon and a Ph.D. thesis–all of which have raised lots of questions as to their veracity and whether she plagiarized those, too–conservatives continue to embrace peroxide plagiarist Crowley. (And she continues to snootily insist on being referred to as “Dr.” Monica Crowley. Whatever.)
In fact, Ms. Plagiarism is a calendar girl, Miss November, for the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute. CBLPI is a great organization, but do they really want to teach young women to steal? That’s what their poster girl, Monica Crowley, did. I doubt Clare Boothe Luce, a classy and integrity-abundant journalist and writer (among other things), would condone it.
It’s liberals that believe in taking away your property from you by force (you know, big government, redistribution of the wealth, eminent domain, et al). Conservatives are supposed to believe in property rights, but not these low-rent thieves.
Poor Ben Domenech. He apparently wasn’t a big enough name to get away with unarmed robbery, the way Jerome Corsi and Monica Crowley did.
Tags: Ben Domenech, Clare Boothe Luce, Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, classy and integrity-abundant journalist and writer, co-author, Commentary, Debbie Schlussel, editor, Jayson Blair, Jerome Corsi, John Kerry, Joseph Farah, Monica Crowley, New York, News Channel, Nixon, President, the Wall Street Journal, WABC, Wall Street Journal, WorldNetDaily.com
It’s a shame, shows how low the conservative movement has gone. It really has turned into a racket in many ways. With friends like this, who needs enemies? Well, just keep making a big problem out of this stuff and sooner or later people will come around.
“At least an armed robber has the guts and decency to tell you to your face that he’s stealing from you.” I agree, and let me add that at least you can stop him if you’re quick enough with your hands. I don’t know exactly when the political scene in America became a cesspool of parasites with no honor. I think ever since Reagan left the White House, it’s slowly degenerated into one. It’s starting to remind me of the Old Country, and not the good parts either!
KnightoftheImpaler on March 25, 2006 at 2:50 am