Washington Post “omsbudsman” Deborah Howell on Ben Domenech, the 24-year-old GOP operative hired to write the newspaper’s Red America blog. Ben resigned within the same week when evidence emerged that he was a serial plagiarist.

“I can’t defend it. It’s a fuckin’ disaster.”

A local’s perspective…

Local blogger Erick Erickson, a former Republican operative and co-founder of Republican blogs Red State and Peach Pundit, said he is a friend of Domenech’s. When the story broke, Erick wrote:

There are rational explanations to each charge made against Ben. He has done nothing wrong. There are those that will stop at nothing to sabotage what should be a really brilliant career for him. They don’t have truth on their side and it sucks to both see that they might be making inroads and it sucks to see that there are those who should be fighting back and defending a friend who sit idly by.

Today, Erick acknowledged in another post that the charges are irrefutable, then proceeded to launch into a diatribe against “the attackers” who “have done much more of that and worse.” (evidence?)

In all realms of American political theater, the Republicans’ victim act is growing stale. Despite running all branches of government at both the state and local levels, they always find a way to piss and moan about how some bogeyman is victimizing them or holding down their opinions. Boo-hoo. Ben has no one to blame but himself for the result of this episode. Don’t plagiarize, and you won’t be made into a pariah. Pretty simple formula if you ask me.

The Howell quote was found on Digital Drifter via Patrick and Atrios.