New Blog: Red America
We've launched Red America, a new blog by Ben Domenech that will offer a daily mix of commentary, analysis and cultural criticism.
Domenech is a co-founder of RedState, a Republican community blog, and an editor at Regnery Press. He worked previously as a speechwriter for former HHS Secretary Tommie Thompson, as chief speechwriter for Texas Sen. John Cornyn and as a contributing editor to National Revew[sic] Online.
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The criticism of this hire has been fast, unrelenting and furious. Anyone interested in the depths of the reaction by his critics really needs to check out these sites to learn more about Domenech's history:
Atrios at Eschaton has been pounding on Domenech with several posts since the decision was announced.
Daily Kos's Georgia10 takes Ben to task in her post, "If I Were Ben Domenech".
James at Your Logo Here has a roundup of young Ben's more controversial posts.
And since WaPo won't allow comments on Domenech's blog (only e-mailed comments are acceptable), those who have something to say to WaPo about Domenech are posting under the original announcement.
The gist of all of this criticism is that Domenech is unqualified to be anything other than a right-wing propagandist based on his previous writings; that he is affiliated with a racist blog; that he called Coretta Scott King a "communist"; that his father may be connected to the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal; that WaPo was seriously mistaken in deciding to publish a right-wing blog without a similar left-wing one to provide balance (if you truly think WaPo is lefty media - you've forgotten their warmongering in the run up to the Iraq war); that many readers are now canceling their subscriptions as a result and that the lefty blogosphere will keep doing what it does best: fact-checking.
Domenech is doomed and he may take WaPo down with him.
Domenech bloviates about comments in this post:
First off, a note of thanks to the liberal side of washingtonpost.com's readership, which has weighed in on Red America in this comment thread. I'm happy that no one's engaged in any ridiculous hyperbole, unfounded accusations or unintentionally hilarious name-calling. We can all agree that such things lower the quality of debate on the Internet, play to the worst side of our knee-jerk partisan nature and have no place in the modern public square. I look forward to engaging you in a serious, respectful discussion on the issues that matter most to the future of our nation.
To that last point, we'll be rolling out comments here shortly. Because this is an opinion blog, and not a work of unbiased journalism, it is sure to spark responses from a few fringe members of this Internet political community, who might be motivated to deluge comment systems with offtopic[sic] concerns...
So, not only is he unqualified, he's an arrogant SOB whose own history of knee-jerk partisan, fringe-type and ridiculous hyperbole now lives in the internet archives for all to see.
This is a guy worthy of being hired by the Washington Post?
UPDATE: (via Atrios) Rep Pete Stark (D-CA) has written a letter to the Washington Post suggesting that the paper also feature a "Blue America" blog to counter Domenech's "Red America".
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