Ben Domenech, a founder of Red State who started a strident conservative blog at WashingtonPost.com on Tuesday, resigned today amidst plagiarism allegations. Meanwhile, over at Red State, Domenech (posting as “Augustine”) challenges several of the allegations and claims that he has been the victim of “the liberal attack machine.”
Notably, however, Domenech does not directly state that all of the allegations are baseless. After discussing a few examples, he writes:
But all these specifics are beside the point. Considering that all of this happened almost eight years ago, and that there are no files or notes that I’ve kept from that brief stint, it is simply my word against the liberal blogosphere on these examples. It becomes a matter of who you believe.
The truth is, a more responsible teenager would’ve nipped this sort of thing in the bud. A less sloppy writer would have made sure that material copied from other places never made it into a published piece, and never necessitated apologies or explanations that will do nothing to stop the critics. I was wrong not to do so.
I confess I’m not exactly sure what that means. Anyone?