by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math
I think Lindsay Beyerstein's summary of Domenech's responses has the proper amount of respect for the situation. But the real loser here isn't Ben Domenech, who, despite near pathological levels of lying and blame shifting, will join Scooter Libby, Oliver North, and Kenneth Starr in the well paid far reaches of the conservative machine. After all, the Republican party takes care of its own, just as any good street gang would.
The real loser here is of course the Washington Post, whose tangled position in the journalistic-political complex is once again on display. Because of its status as the "paper of record" in DC, the Post is willing to slant its coverage in order to curry favor with whoever happens to be in power at the time. Witness, for instance Brad DeLong's healthy criticisms of the paper's economic coverage. Amazingly, thanks the Post's institutional tendency towards "truthiness" rather than truth, the paper is still unwilling to state the obvious. Take this quote from one of their Domenech-After Action Reports, discussing a review that Ben had lifted from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Domenech said he thought his piece appeared first, but a database review found that Murray's review was published three days earlier." Now, perhaps we should be charitable here, and excuse the Post from making definitive statements before their internal investigation is complete. But at this point there's no reason to give Domenech any credibility. This sentence really needs an inline fact-check. At least, "Domenech said he thought his piece appeared first, but at best, his memory is faulty. A database review found ...", or, if you're feeling particularly vindictive, "Domenech said he thought his piece appeared first, but there is no reason to trust his memory at this point. A database review found ...", would get the point across.
Memo to Jim Brady: this is not some he-said/she-said debate between two political parties. This is a debate between Ben Domenech and the Post; you're perfectly allowed to adjudicate the truth value of the man's public statements. For that matter, you're allowed to adjudicate the truth value of a political figure's statements, but let's just go one step at a time.
