Ben Domenech, formerly of Red American on the post.com site, initially fought the charges (as was his right), but has now apologized, tacitly admitting that he is indeed guilty as charged.

I feel bad for him, but frankly I wasn't all that pleased with the Washington Post's move--one of the most subtle but damaging things that can happen to any movement is having someone else pick your standard-bearer.

The elite media has been doing this to conservatives for years. George Will has been a fixture on ABC News as the token conservative since the eighties at least. Have you ever met a conservative like George Will? Is George Will someone you would pick to be the face of conservatism? How about Tucker Carlson? What it is with the elite media's view of conservatives as people who wear bow ties? Its too paranoid to suggest that the Post deliberately chose Domenech because he was a caricature, but that was nevertheless the outcome.

One of the reasons Fox News does well with me and other conservatives is that they aren't afraid of putting articulate, sophisticated and charming conservatives in front of the camera. Its no amen corner either--these people represent the same nuance that we find in the conservative blogosphere--disagreement on policy, sometimes ideology and shifting allegiances as events demand new perspectives. Frankly, the conservative movement in total makes me think that this is how universities should run--strong articulation of points of view couched in a collegial environment of respect and common cause. It is the left's dogmaticism and speech code as much or more than their ideology that defines the difference between us.

I've written about this before and I will say it again--one of the main strengths of the blogosphere is its free-market identifcation of talent. No one appoints you an elite blogger except your readers, which precludes manipulation and provides about as honest a representation of reader tastes as you can hope for. We don't have one standard-bearer, we have a "senate" of strong voices--each with an individual character and style. That seems appropriate for what is essentially a deliberative body.

UPDATE: I just read Ed Morrissey's essay on the effect of the blogosphere's reaction to the Domenech affair.

If anyone wanted to make an argument that the blogosphere is too immature to be considered partners in information dissemination with traditional media outlets, we've provided it in spades this week. We finally had an opportunity to garner a high-profile setting for bloggers at the nation's premiere newspaper, and what did we do? We tore each other to shreds because we didn't like the ideological perspective of the first person chosen for the experiment. We engaged in crude character assassination that greatly overshadowed the actual value of the blogosphere to find and correct real transgressions and deficiencies, as demonstrated by the discovery of Domenech's plagiarism.

I be perfectly honest here, at the risk of offending the Captain (OK, really honest--Captain's Quarters doesn't drive much traffic my way, so what the hell....), I think this view has more to do with Ed's own aspirations for a "partnership" with established media outlets than it does with the blogosphere's best interests.

We are most definitively not a "herd" and that's a good thing. I see absolutely no problem with how the Domenech affair unwound--character assassination and everything. Its completely in character with the blogosphere and I don't think most of us are here to impress the fellas at the Washington Post or at Rockefeller center. The blogospheric "market" should reward or punish behavior and let us develop consistent with the expectations and preferences of our readers.

Ed is looking at this upside down--the Post is looking to us to determine its next moves in an uncertain future. Its insane for us to be looking to them for approval. If I were Jim Brady, I would be looking at this past weeks events very closely, reading everything that has been written because ultimately this is unfiltered market intelligence of the finest quality. Some of the things he might learn are:

1. The conservative blogosphere isn't a monolith. You can't expect to hire a "conservative" and be done with it. Some sided with Domenech, some were critical of him. I don't know what the thinking was behind hiring Domenech in the first place, but it the Washington Post online really wanted to represent conservative views and thereby drive traffic to their site, they would probably be better served having "guest bloggers" rotate through an established vehicle (and let's rename the blog by the way...). This would make Ed happy as he would surely be invited to contribute, it would make the Post happy and of course the left would remain extremely unhappy but unable to hit a moving target.

2. The lefty blogosphere actually presents more of a challenge. It is the closest thing to an amen corner I can think of and most different from the column format. Lefty blogs are like email forums with a discussion leader--the fun is in the comment stream. You can edit a column, but how do you edit a comment stream? A lot of on-line publications have a separate discussion forum which provides a degree of insulation in terms of editorial policy, but lefty blog comment streams are integrated with the original post and its unlikely that they would accept a format that was substantially different. This present another problem--Kevin Drum has a blog on the Washington Monthly site, but its Kevin Drum's blog, and its tie-in to Washington Monthly is rather tenous at best, in fact I've never read a blog reference that said anything more than "Kevin Drum". If the Washington Monthly was hoping for some brand synergy, I suspect they've been disappointed.

Whatever Brady does, its an experiment and its going to have unforeseen consequences regardless of what one does.