Obsidian Wings

Season wrapup

Having been busy tearing up carpet and padding, etc, and preparing the house and dinner for a birthday feast (my wife's birthday), I hadn't much time to pay attention to the last bits of the swimming season.

My only prediction for the day was the kind that doesn't count: the kind that no one else hears you make.  I predicted (to myself) that Ryan Lochte would break his own 200 yard backstroke record, and of course that he did.  The new record is 1:37.68, which is about six-tenths of a second faster than his old record.  Call it about three and a half feet improvement at the touch.  Lochte also had the second-fastest leadoff leg in the 4x100 free relay, which is an amazing stat given that he's not really considered to be a world-class sprint freestyle swimmer.  Overall Lochte had an outstanding meet, setting four NCAA records, winning three individual events and contributing greatly to Florida's place in the team standings.  If Lochte doesn't get the MVP award (can't recall offhand what it's called exactly) then there is no justice.

Other outstanding swimming today had Michigan senior Davis Tarwater scare Melvin Stewart's fourteen-year-old 200 butterfly record; missed it by 0.06 seconds.  Georgia sophomore Sebastien Rouault also put the scare on Chris Thompson's record in the 1650 with a 14:29.43.  He's got 2.8 seconds to go, but he's also got a couple of years in which to bring the time down.

Purdue (my alma mater) had an unusually high scoring day, with breaststroker Giordan Pogioli grabbing fifth place in the 200 breaststroke finals, and diver Steven LoBue earning third place in the platform diving.  LoBue also took sixth on the 3m board and seventh on the 1m board.

I don't have access to all of the final team scores, but Auburn took first, Arizona second, Stanford third, Texas fourth and Florida fifth.  Purdue placed sixteenth overall with 59 total points.

Onward.

I won't add much to what Hilzoy (1, 2) and Charles have already written regarding the circumstances of Ben Domenech's sudden demise as the Washington Post.  But I don't want the occasion to pass without tossing in my two cents:

First, I feel sorry for the guy.  We all should.  I won't minimize his errors, but one can't ignore the fact that he endured a lot of truly baseless -- and truly odious -- attacks.  The fact that the final charge stuck (and properly so) doesn't make the rest of it right.  Save for our own Hilzoy, who characteristically took the high road, there aren't a lot on the left who should walk away from this one feeling proud. 

Second, I expect Domenech to be back.  Moreover, I look forward to his return.  I say this even though my politics are pretty close to the mirror image's of Domenech's.  Domenech zigs right where I zag left; turns protectionist where I turn capitalist; and, to my way of thinking, is more interested in a reordered government than a smaller one.  But I've always enjoyed the debates, and know that they'll be more in the future.  F. Scott Fitzgerald once remarked that "There are no second acts in American lives."  It was among the stupider things that he ever said.  Here's looking forward to Domenech's next act -- which hopefully sees him recast as a Rockefeller Republican ;-).

UPDATE:  And then I read this (h/t Gandelman) which led me to re-read that, and I realized that my "Second" requires a supplement.  As I wrote in comments, I'm not surprised that Domenech first sought to coverup his wrongs.  But I hadn't paid enough attention to what else he did, namely, toss a ton of mud on others.  I have no doubt that Domenech will be back; it will, however, be a very long road.  And he has only started his apologies.

Something That's More Interesting Than Plagiarism

by hilzoy

Stephen Roach, the Chief Economist and Managing Director of Morgan Stanley, has just been in Beijing and Dubai (for reasons unrelated to e.g. the port deal). His Global Economic Forum posts are always worth reading, if you're into economics, but his two most recent posts are unusually good. This one is from Beijing, where Roach was participating in the China Development Forum, met with various interesting people like, oh, the Premier of the PR C, and then, by coincidence, met with some US Senators who were there to try to get concessions out of the Chinese. As Roach says in today's post:

"The editorialist in me says, if Washington -- or for that matter, beleaguered US manufacturers -- really wants China to give, then it needs to make that argument from a position of a macro strength and boost America’s national saving rate. Until, or unless, that happens, US-led China bashing is nothing short of political hypocrisy."

Today's post also talks about Dubai, and about certain common threads:

"From Beijing to Dubai, there is a growing undercurrent of economic anti-Americanism. The irony of it all is truly extraordinary: The US has the greatest external deficit in the history of the world, and is now sending increasingly negative signals to two of its most generous providers of foreign capital -- China and the Middle East. The United States has been extraordinarily lucky to finance its massive current account deficit on extremely attractive terms. If its lenders now start to push back, those terms could change quickly -- with adverse consequences for the dollar, real long-term US interest rates, and overly indebted American consumers. The slope is getting slipperier, and Washington could care less."

Our government, in its infinite wisdom, has made our economy extraordinarily dependent on foreign capital. Had it not done so, lecturing countries who lend us money about what they "must" do would merely be rude. As it is, it's also incredibly dumb. We have needlessly put ourselves in a position in which we depend on the goodwill of the People's Republic of China. In so doing we have sacrificed not just our right to lecture our lenders, but an enormous amount of our freedom of action. That was not, in my opinion, a very smart thing to do.

Plagiarism 2: The Response

by hilzoy

As I wrote last night, a lot of cases of what seem to be plagiarism by Ben Domenech have been found by various bloggers. (Comprehensive list here.) I've already said what I have to say about the plagiarism itself; and now, while Domenech has not (apparently) admitted wrongdoing, he has resigned. I now want to focus on the response by bloggers on the right.

And Another One Gone...

by Slartibartfast

UPDATE:  I predict that Tom Dolan's NCAA, American and US Open record in the 400 IM will fall tonight (3/24) to Ryan Lochte.  He's just qualified 2nd for the finals.

Not much time to post details, but NCAA men's swimming began today and the records, they are a fallin'.  Peter Vanderkaay of Michigan wiped Tom Dolan's eleven-year-old American Record in the 500 freestyle off  the board, clocking in at 4:08.60.

Next, if you'll recall one of my few recent posts, I predicted that Ryan Lochte would bring it in the NCAA championship meets.  Here's the headliner:

Men's NCAA Div I. Championships, Finals: Ryan Lochte Destroys Phelps' American Record in the 200 Individual Medley -- March 23, 2006

Plagiarism

by hilzoy

I really hadn't intended to write another post on puzzling things conservatives have recently said or done. However, the story of Ben Domenech (aka Augustine)'s apparent plagiarism made me change my mind. If you haven't seen it yet, here are some of the examples:

* Via a dkos diary: Here's a humor piece that Domenech published in his college paper. It's lifted from PJ O'Rourke. Here's a link I hope will work, to Amazon.com's 'Reader'; if that doesn't work, use this, and click where it says 'p. 176'. I won't excerpt, since that would require typing the O'Rourke in, but trust me: this one just goes on and on and on.

* From another dkos diary: Compare Domenech's review of "Bringing Out the Dead" to this one from Salon.com. The plagiarized part starts with the sentence "Frank Pierce (Nicolas Cage) is a New York City medic who's haunted by the ghosts of the people he couldn't save, particularly that of a young girl named Rose." It's the second sentence of the Salon review's third paragraph, and (with 'haunted' changed to 'confronted') the beginning of the fourth paragraph of Domenech's.

* Still more from a dkos diarist: But note: I can't find a date for the Cox piece, so it could be that Domenech's piece preceded it. I've emailed the author, and will update if he replies.

Ben Domenech in NRO:

"Translucent and glowing, they ooze up from the ground and float through solid walls, wriggling countless tentacles and snapping their jaws. They're known as the Phantoms, alien thingies that, for three decades, have been sucking the life out of the earthlings of “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.” Swollen nightmares from a petri dish, they're the kind of grotesque whatsits horror writer H.P. Lovecraft would have kept as pets in his basement."

Steve Murray (Cox News):

"Translucent and glowing, they ooze up from the ground and float through solid walls, splaying their tentacles and snapping their jaws, dripping a discomfiting acidic ooze. They're known as the Phantoms, otherworldly beings who, for three decades, have been literally sucking the life out of the earthlings of the human."

I actually found my own bit. I noticed that when I clicked 'Home' on the reviews from Domenech's college paper, I got an error message, and I wanted to confirm that this was, in fact, legit. The ensuing Google search landed me with a whole list of Domenech's articles, and since (as a professor) I have some experience with using Google to discover plagiarism, I decided to try my hand at it. I didn't check many of them (life is short), but I did find this bit, from reviews of Toy Story Two:

Ben Domenech:

"In this sequel, Woody (Tom Hanks) gets snatched at a garage sale by a bad guy, Big Al, voiced by Wayne Knight (Seinfeld's Newman, forever destined to play the role of an overweight jerk). Unbeknownst to most everybody else, Woody is now a valuable collector's item, part of a set of '50s Western-themed toys being put together by an unscrupulous dealer. He intends to sell the toys to a museum in (where else?) Japan. (...)

Woody's old gang ‹ Rex, the timid dinosaur (Wallace Shawn), Hamm the piggy bank (John Ratzenberger), Slinky Dog (Jim Varney) and Mr. Potato Head (Don Rickles) ‹ leave the security of Andy's bedroom to rescue their pal, led by the intrepid Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen)."

AllMoviePortal.com:

"In this sequel, Woody gets snatched at a garage sale by a bad guy. Unbeknownst to most everybody else, Woody is now a valuable collector's item, part of a set of '50s, Western-themed toys being put together by an unscrupulous dealer. 

He intends to sell the toys to a museum in (where else?) Japan. (...)

Woody's old gang -- the timid dinosaur, Hamm the piggy bank, Slinky dog and Mr. Potato Head -- leave the security of Andy's bedroom to rescue their pal, led by the intrepid Buzz Lightyear."

***

I don't know Ben Domenech/Augustine at all well. The only post of his I remembered before this all happened was a spectacularly ill-informed piece on stem cells; I contemplated writing something on it, but decided to comment on RedState instead. So I really have no idea what to make of this. I'd be interested in the views of those who follow his work more closely.

However, there are a few things I do know.

First, plagiarism is very serious. I don't know how much this view is shared by people who don't write for a living, but for writers, it's pretty much the ultimate dishonor. Your reputation as a writer or a scholar depends on your written work, and the discovery that you have been passing someone else's work off as your own is the closest thing we have to a mortal sin.

Second, in my opinion, the Post should not have hired him, not because he's conservative, but because he has no journalistic experience, and besides, his first few blog posts were pretty dreadful. But if these charges pan out and they don't fire him, they have no standards at all. Likewise, if they pan out, you have to ask yourself why the Post didn't do a better job of vetting him before they hired him.

Third, what could he have been thinking when he took the Post job? If anything on earth is predictable, it's that if the Post hired a lightning rod like Domenech, his work would be gone over with a fine toothed comb. Could he possibly not have anticipated this? If he did, why didn't he just come up with a decent excuse to say no?

Finally, Ben Domenech/Augustine wrote:

"Ethical rules are the rules for a reason, and the Republican Party is one that respects the rule of law – that means really respecting it, not dancing along the edge. Because when the Democrats play dirty, they should have to stretch the truth; they should have to lie and connive; and they should have to find people like Ronnie Earle to do it for them. If they don’t have to do that, then something’s wrong. (...)

Ethical relativists do not belong in a party founded on moral absolutes. And just because the “Do as you're told” Republicans get elected doesn't mean we should ever let them get power. We need to push them out, for the good of the country and the party, and 2006 is the year to do it."

I completely agree about the need to respect moral values. If these charges are as well-founded as they seem to be, it will be interesting to see whether Ben Domenech has the guts to apply these principles to his own case, or whether he deploys morality only against other people.

(h/t Atrios)

***

Update: RedState's response is here. If you strip away the parts about liberals being awful, the response to the plagiarism accusations is:

"And now those opposed to Ben have googled prior writings that on the surface appear suspicious, but only because permissions obtained and judgments made offline were not reflected online by an out dated and out of business campus newspaper. But that's all the opponents want - just enough to sabotage a career, though in the process they will sabotage themselves. Facts have no meaning. Only impressions have any bearing on this. The charges of plagarism are false, meant to bring down a good and honest man. The presented facts to prove plagarism are specious -- products of shoddy work."

I can't believe they have read all the cases. It's not just a college newspaper; it's stuff that appeared in the National Review. Speaking for myself, I would not have written on this if I hadn't looked at them, and concluded that they were not specious. There are also more than enough cases to make you wonder: can all of these have a benign explanation? I am prepared to discover that they do. But I can't imagine that Erick (who wrote the RedState piece) would be as confident as he seems to be if he had read all the cases that are coming out.

I also can't imagine that he wrote his piece without talking to Domenech. If all this turns out somehow to be baseless, well and good. If not, it's hard to imagine that Domenech hasn't just added lying to his friends and defenders to plagiarism.

Pivotal Tests

by Charles

Afghanistan.  The trial of Abdul Rahman is an important test case for the Afghan government.  Rahman converted from Islam to Christianity sixteen years ago, but adversarial family members recently ratted him out, notifying the authorities of his switch.  Under sharia law, he could face the death penalty.  The Afghan Constitution is dissonant on the issue, expressly upholding Islamic principles but also incorporating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  The outcome of the case will tell us whether the current Afghan regime is moving in the direction of Taliban II or toward a free and democratic society.  Quite frankly, the United States should not let a Rahman conviction stand.  We have too much invested in this country to let this evil affront to civilization happen.  The state prosecutor may have an out, though, declaring that Rahman may be "mentally unfit" to stand trial.  The state prosecutor has more evidence on the mental unfitness of jihadist loony tunes than Rahman, but if that's what it takes to get out of an embarrassing situation, so be it.

Iraq.  Just as the three previous elections were pivotal moments in Iraqi (and American) history, so is the formation of its new government.  The longer it stays in limbo, the more tenuous the situation becomes.  By way of Winds of Change, British Defence Minister John Reid is concerned that delays allow terrorists and rejectionists more opportunities to destabilize.  Me, too.  I wish I could think of the right analogy, but each successful event in post-Saddam Iraq is merely one step forward to a free, peaceful, non-theocratic representative republic.  If such event fails, or fails to happen, then we move six steps backward.  This is looking like one of those moments where one more step must be had.  If not, those terrorists, rejectionists and others agitating for civil war may just get one.

Iran.  With EU3 negotiations gone nowhere and discussions underway in the UN Security Council, the next step toward stopping Iran from having an atomic bomb is direct meetings between American and Iranian officials.  The Mullah Supreme (Khameini) is amenable to talks with the United States, and we should take him up on his offer.  If Iran gets to a point where we must decide to strike or not to strike, we should be able to say that we've tried every avenue of recourse.

You didn't miss it, Kevin

by von

Picking up on President Bush's latest speech on Iraq, Kevin Drum writes:

Harry Reid, who has shown himself to be a pretty astute leader of Senate Dems, had exactly the right response: [to Bush's speech]

Three years into the war in Iraq, with that country now experiencing a low-grade civil war, it has become increasingly clear that President Bush is content with an open-ended commitment with no end in sight for our U.S. troops and taxpayers....President Bush must accept that he has to change course, reject the notion of an open-ended commitment in Iraq, and finally develop the plan that allows our troops to begin to come home.

The phrase "open-ended commitment" is the right one to use. It's the logical equivalent of refusing to set benchmarks for withdrawal, and it's not something the American public is very comfortable with. An open-ended commitment during the Cold War was one thing, but Iraq is quite another. An open-ended commitment there sounds way too much like Vietnam.

One question, though. Has Reid himself proposed a "plan that allows our troops to begin to come home"? This is a genuine question. I don't remember hearing one, but I might have missed it.

You didn't miss it, Kevin. 

Now, I lean fairly Belgravian of late, alternately flagellating myself and the Administration for our failures in Iraq. The Democrats, however, haven't offered any alternative; as Kevin acknowledges (to his credit), this latest twist is a sound bite.  Nothing can stop the Democrats from spending their (and Iraq's) time perfecting their message for November; at the end of the day, though, "Bush got us into this mess" is not a foreign policy.

If staying the course in Iraq won't do, what will? 

Sheesh! (Special Jeff Goldstein Edition)

by hilzoy

It's been coming on for a while now. There was his claim that "constant naysaying" from the left has "has objectively hurt the war effort", and more recently this fascinating prediction: "I’m beginning to think that a (non-violent) civil war is coming—and that, frankly, it needs to happen." But now it's finally happened: in my completely unprofessional opinion, Jeff Goldstein has come unglued.

Basically, here's the story: Atrios wrote a snarky post about Jeff. Apparently, Tristero said something good about it -- I can't find it on Hullabaloo (the relevant time period seems to be off their main page, but not yet in their archives), but since Jeff apparently didn't read it either, I'm not sure what it would add. Jeff apparently took offense at the fact that Tristero was commenting on Protein Wisdom while criticizing him of Hullaballoo, and wrote a bizarro comment banning him. It has to be seen to be believed, though it is not work-safe (actually, it's pretty revolting.) In it, Jeff not only provides several different graphic (and completely gratuitous) descriptions of things Tristero is supposedly doing to or with his (Jeff's) dog, but also the fascinating suggestion that Tristero has been fellating, not Atrios, but one of Atrios' posts. (Is that conceptually possible?)

Jeff also says that Tristero "has the intellect of a gibbon". This DVD, which I highly recommend, has an interview with Tristero, so you can judge his intellect for yourself. (If you get the DVD, you can also compare Tristero's creative work to Jeff's. I was tempted to add that that wouldn't really be fair, but then thought: why on earth not? The only real difference I can see, other than quality, is that Jeff Goldstein advertises his artistic pretensions, while Tristero wears his so lightly that you wouldn't know they were there.)

This was just one of those moments that's too weird to pass unremarked.

RNC Logic

by hilzoy

The RNC has introduced a new ad called 'Censure'. You can listen to it on their home page, which says: "Democrats Want To Censure President Bush For Fighting The War On Terror." That phrase doesn't appear in the transcript of the ad; it does say this, however:

"Now Feingold and other Democrats want to censure the President. Publicly reprimanding President Bush for pursuing suspected members of al Qaeda."

I'm really tired of explaining that none of us are opposed to fighting the war on terror, or even eavesdropping on Americans whom there is probable cause to believe are in contact with terrorists. We are only opposed to doing that in ways that violate the law. FISA seems like a pretty decent law to me. It has provisions for emergencies. The FISA court is said to work well; if anything about it is troubling, it's the tiny number of cases in which it has not acceded to government requests. (Note: what's troubling about this is not that I think that the government shouldn't eavesdrop on actual terrorists; it's just that I would have expected the proportion of applications in which it didn't make a good case that the proposed target of surveillance was, or was in contact with, a terrorist to be somewhat higher.) All I ask is that the President follow it.

We've said this often enough that I would have thought it might have sunk in. Apparently not. So I thought I'd try a different approach: mockery and sarcasm.

Scenario 1: I own a grocery store. Agents of the government come in and take all the food off my shelves without paying for it. I protest; they say: it's for the troops in Iraq. I reply: but that doesn't mean you can just take the food without paying for it! I write to my representatives asking that they do something.

The RNC ad: "Now people like hilzoy want to censure the President for trying to make sure that our men and women in uniform have food on the table. She doesn't support our troops; she'd rather see them starve to death than give them a decent meal. It's a good thing people like her don't run the country."

Possible addition: the Democrats propose that we just buy food for the troops, as has always been done in the past. The RNC ad: "Now the Democrats want to spend more of your money on big government programs."

Scenario 2: President Bush decides to dispense with those annoying, time-consuming trials. Henceforth, he declares, people the Justice Department decides are criminals will simply be shot on sight. The Democrats protest.

The RNC ad: "Now the Democrats want to censure the President for punishing criminals. They think rapists and pedophiles should be free to prey on ordinary people. Is this how they plan to win the war on crime?"

Scenario 3: President Bush suspends all future elections and declares himself President for Life. The Democrats protest.

The RNC ad: "The President wants to ensure that our country has effective leadership while we're fighting the war on terror. The Democrats think that's a bad idea. They'd rather have us uncertain about our leadership and distracted by politics. Is it any wonder we don't trust them to keep America safe?"

See how easy? Construct your own RNC ads in comments. There's really no limit to what you can justify using RNC logic.