Over the past few days, we have seen blogger Ben Domenech resign over allegations of plagiarism. Used as proof of this plagiarism were identical passages copied from Domenech's articles and other periodicals.

What I would ask the liberal blogger who indicted Mr. Domenech is "Are you not plagerists yourselves?" In proving your point, you not only copied portions Mr. Domenech's article word for word, but also portions of the articles Mr. Domenech copied.

In a true show of personal responsibility, an ethic conservatives hold dear, Mr. Domenech has said that he can't remember if he copied some of the materials, as he was drunk at the time, but he expects that it was his editors that actually did it. This is an example even President Bush would be proud of.

In reality, Mr. Domenech has a point. As editor here at NewsBlog 5000, I often replace a paragraph or, in extreme cases, a whole story with the words of another news source. I suspect this is what happened to Mr. Domenech because he, as many of my writers are, is completely incompetent.

But let me make it clear, I make no apologies for our publication. I freely admit that we steal from other news sources. As I said in this message to slate.com, when we appeared in "Today's Blogs" last year: "I am a great admirer of the good work you are doing at Slate, as can probably be surmised by the occasional stint of mild plagiarism."

Dr. Ryan Maynard, Editor, NewsBlog 5000

posted by NewsBlog 5000  # Monday, March 27, 2006