"[Ben Domenech] is a co-founder of RedState, the web's leading Republican community blog. He began his career as a political journalist covering Capitol Hill, writing for numerous publications and working as a contributing editor to National Review Online. After 9/11, he abandoned the journalism field for a taxpayer-funded life and was sworn in as the youngest political appointee of President George W. Bush. Following a year as a speechwriter for HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson and two as the chief speechwriter for Texas Senator John Cornyn, Ben is now a book editor for Regnery Publishing, where he has edited multiple bestsellers and books by Michelle Malkin, Ramesh Ponnuru, and Hugh Hewitt."

One of the first, in fact, was Malkin, whose last book Domenech edited at Regnery. In a comment posted late Friday morning, she wrote: "It is one thing to paraphrase basic facts from a wire story. But to filch the original thoughts and distinctly crafted phrases of a writer without crediting him/her -- and doing so repeatedly -- is unacceptable in our business. Some of the cases occurred while Ben was in college; he is blaming an editor for these transgressions. But at least one other incident involved a piece he wrote for [National Review Online] after he graduated. The side-by-side comparisons of these extensive passages is damning. I certainly understand the impulse on the Right to rally around Domenech. But I can't ignore the plain evidence. And the charges can't be dismissed as 'lies' or jealousy attributed to Ben's age.... The bottom line is: I know it when I see it. And, painfully, Domenech's detractors are right. He should own up to it and step down."

It would be nice if the impulse that led the Washington Post Co. to hire Domenech in the first place had reflected as clear a sense of responsibility. Earlier Friday, [Jim Brady] told the Post's [Howard Kurtz] that he hired the young commentator because "we were completely unrepresented by a social conservative voice." Fair enough, but the fact is that WashingtonPost.com also doesn't have a designated blue state voice, which lent a certain plausibility to the liberal bloggers' initial charge that Domenech was recruited to appease conservative critics who have been raging about the alleged liberal bias of Post staff writer Dan Froomkin's popular White House Briefing blog.