The Pachyderm Has Left the Big Top

This was a quick and unfortunate end to WaPo's laudable experiment in in-house conservative blogging.

In the past 24 hours, we learned of allegations that Ben Domenech plagiarized material that appeared under his byline in various publications prior to washingtonpost.com contracting with him to write a blog that launched Tuesday.

An investigation into these allegations was ongoing, and in the interim, Domenech has resigned, effective immediately.

If the allegations are true (and from the available evidence, it seems highly likely that they are), obviously it's appropriate that Domenech resign.  But the worst part about this is not the knock to WaPo's integrity (*chortle*), it's the implicit vindication of the hack job the lefty bloggers had worked up on Domenech before there was any indication of plagiarism.  Well before these allegations surfaced, the in-unison, furious gripe was over Domenech's right-leaning ideology and the audacity of the paper to put a partisan on staff (*double chortle*), when there was no left-leaning voice to balance him out (*rolling on floor chortling*).

Hopefully this short-lived and inauspicious foray by the MSM into the world of partisan blogging won't dissuade them or their counterparts from making additional such moves in the future.  The symbiotic (or is it parasympathetic?) relationship between primary news-gathering organizations and the blogosphere is easy to see.  That relationship is also fluid and will continue to equilibrate in due course, in the same self-organizing, self-optimizing way the blogosphere itself has evolved.  For major news outlets to house well-known bloggers with stated political leanings may or may not be part of the ensuing equilibrium, but it was a positive move to have such a high-profile test case being incubated.  That it ended this unfortunate way will be bad for the continued evolution and optimization of this changing landscape, if it does discourage others from conducting similar experiments.

The message here is not that the Post was wrong to bring in a partisan blogger (and certainly not that the paper has swung too far to the right), but simply that their due diligence isn't up to snuff.

And really, was that even under debate?
(*zing*)

Previously:  Pachyderm In the Mist: The Dawn of Red America
Elsewhere:  Michelle Malkin, Decision '08, Iowa Voice, Gay Patriot, Say Anything, Ace of Spades, Ankle Biting Pundits, Expose the Left

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Update: Ben Domenech responds at RedState.  RedState responds at RedState.