Comments on: Ben Domenech

By: Jaybird

Jaybird — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 19:31:56 +0000

#42 above. I thought that they’d whip around and put a higher value on integrity than loyalty.

Boy, was I wrong. The admins over there are acting like a Kos thread in which Dean comments and a Gephardt fan replies. It’s Ugly. There’s no such thing as principled opposition. You’re either with us or you’re piling on.

By: abb1

abb1 — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 07:10:16 +0000

On the “condom-filled-with-nuts” thing – I think this is one of these cases where the “intent”, the “state of mind” counts. If she read a signed column and lifted the joke from there without attribution – then it’s an instance of plagiarism. If she heard it in a bar – then it’s not. To repeat a one line joke you heard in a bar is not the same as copying someone’s 50-word paragraph.

By: ogmb

ogmb — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 06:17:37 +0000

People are going through his college paper movie reviews? That’s ridiculous.

People compare supposed 1970’s typewriter fonts with MS Word documents? That’s ridiculous.

By: rilkefan

rilkefan — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 04:25:19 +0000

Plagiarism, for the challenged. jaybird, a link?

By: Jaybird

Jaybird — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 00:00:01 +0000

I just wanted to say that I was totally wrong in my prediction. Horribly wrong. Jaw-droppingly wrong.

By: k

Sun, 26 Mar 2006 23:46:47 +0000

Natalie, I don’t think your joke was copied or unfunny, my point was that jokes and quips are pretty much public domain and expecting writers and pundits to track down the origin of every joke they use is unreasonable. Also, there is nothing wrong with your grammar, that is what the CNN transcript reports her as saying. You interpret it as her claiming authorship—I think that is a stretch. She is just telling a joke.

By: Natalie Solent

Natalie Solent — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 21:00:42 +0000

You wound me, sir! Although others may have thought of the same one, my joke was an independent creation – a thing you may find easier to believe when you reflect that it was a pretty obvious sort of joke to make, really. Just the sort of mediocre joke that lots of people could think up independently.

In contrast the condom-filled-with-nuts observation took a lot more talent to make for the first time. I maintain it was a meme big enough to have its unauthorised use count as theft. (Count the apparent inclusion of the remark about Gray Davis down to my bad grammar.)

Now I’m trying and failing to think of an original remark to finish off with before this thread drops off the main page…

By: k

Sun, 26 Mar 2006 17:03:30 +0000

Natalie, it is still pretty weak tea. It’s a joke, a throwaway line. I have seen your joke about getting into the whiskey in comments sections in some form or another before but I would find it quite odd if you had preceded by saying “as someone in a comments section once said…”

If you are really going to be that picky then you should grant that Clive James never said, “Gray Davis makes Mr. Rogers look like he was on steroids,” as the “this” in the last sentence seems to refer the previous sentence as one observation. Tim Blair’s point on this is tendentious, at best.

By: Natalie Solent

Natalie Solent — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 13:38:00 +0000

And there’s still Florence King.

By: Natalie Solent

Natalie Solent — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 13:36:46 +0000

She didn’t “misattribute” the comment, rilkefan and k, she passed it off as her own. She said,

“I went out to California to look at this race and came back saying, oh, Gray Davis makes Mr. Rogers look like he was on steroids, and Arnold Schwarzenegger looks exactly like a condom stuffed with walnuts. This was not the most profound observation I have ever made about serious public affairs, but it’s irresistible.”

When pressed with the fact that Clive James made that quip first she then said she had first heard it from “a civil libertarian in Vermont” – but that does not really answer the objection.

By: Tim Worstall

Tim Worstall — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 11:11:59 +0000

Ben Domenech

Wow, lookee here, there’s a blogging job on offer to some lucky conservative type at The Washington Post. To provide balance to the paper’s more normally liberal output, or perhaps, as some have suggested, to allow the WaPo’s more normally

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 01:46:26 +0000

Tom T, sorry for being snide. That said, k is exactly right here. Having used her column to push criticism of Froomkin, which led directly to Domenech’s hiring she can’t just walk away.

And I find it hard to believe there aren’t any print journalists at the Post who are more upset about the brand being trashed by the appointment of someone like Domenech than by the fact that Froomkin writes a liberal opinion column.

By: k

Sun, 26 Mar 2006 01:20:44 +0000

Tom T., if Froomkin is out of her jurisdiction then she doesn’t have much business criticizing him, whether he annoys the Print reporting editor or not. She is supposed to represent the readers not the reporters. Trashing a fellow journalist at a different news outlet because her friends don’t like him is pretty unprofessional. It is the kind of thing I would expect from Mickey Kaus. But, of course, the excuse that they are different outlets is hard to accept. If they really are different and should be treated so, how is that Froomkin column suddenly got labelled Opinion and they went out and hired Domenech to “balance” him? The incident was a ham-handed effort to slap Froomkin down so the White House Post reporters could score brownie points with the White House.

By: k

Sun, 26 Mar 2006 00:58:29 +0000

I have to agree with rilkefan. Looks like jim miller and natalie solent got into the whisky some time ago. The attack on Ivins is quite strained, but even if it were spot on it in hardly exculpates Domenech. It is a transparent attempt to change the subject. Though, I did find the comment about Ivins columns that “nearly everything in them is borrowed, usually with attribution” amusing. Borrowing with attribution?! String her up! My God, if no one stops her, next thing we know she will quoting people and footnoting the quote!

By: rilkefan

rilkefan — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 00:10:30 +0000

Ok, she twice misattributed the line “Arnold looks like a condom filled with walnuts”, which she thought a friend said. I’d say your bringing this up in this context reflects worse on you than on Ivins, though I appreciate the linkage so I was able to see how silly your attack on her was.