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Kos, Ben Domenech And The Quest For 'Balance'

The decision by Newsweek to hire Kingpin Kos as a political commentator and its quest to find the perfect conservative flame-thrower to "balance" him calls to mind the brouhaha that erupted in early 2006 when The Washington Post tapped RedState co-founder Ben Domenech as a blogger.

Before Domenech was exposed as a plagiarist and resigned three days after he started blogging, liberal bloggers spent a good deal of time discussing the issue of "balance."

Kos and plenty of diarists at Daily Kos were among those to comment on Domenech. "I wonder if the Post thought their lame efforts at 'balance' would result in such tragic hilarity," Kos wrote. "I wonder how the paper's staff are feeling about their paper's credibility right now." And I wonder if Kos thinks Newsweek's effort to balance him are equally lame.

Here are more links and pull quotes to help you flashback with me to the Dark Days of Domenech:

-- Steve Benen of The Carpetbagger Report: "The idea, apparently, is to offer WaPo blog readers -balance' -- with Domenech on the right and Dan Froomkin on the left. This is, of course, patently absurd. Froomkin is a professional journalist who offers hard-hitting analysis of the Bush administration. He is not a partisan, nor a hack, nor an ideologue. ... Domenech has an agenda -- to promote a far-right worldview and defend Republicans against any and all criticism. He is, for lack of a better word, an advocate. ... If this is 'balance,' the establishment media needs less of it, not more."

-- Duncan Black at Eschaton: "I'm not of the belief that the Post is required to provide balance on its editorial page or Web site. But Posties have expressed a desire for balance, and if hiring Domenech, who has no counterpart on the left, is their way of achieving that, it's ridiculous."

-- Brad DeLong compared Domenech with "left-wing nut-boy Alexander Cockburn" and, much like conservative bloggers are starting to do with the idea of Kos at Newsweek, ridiculed Domenech's qualifications for the job: "a man with no policy or analytic or reportorial qualifications save a couple years as a right-wing speechwriter, an unarmed man in a battle of wits."

-- Glenn Greenwald of Unclaimed Territory: "I thought the hiring reflects some highly questionable editorial judgment, given that Domenech's writings are trite, rage-fueled rants filled with mindless talking points which one can find anywhere -- he aspires to be some sort of juvenile online Rush Limbaugh -- but WashingtonPost.com has the right to associate itself with that level of writing and analysis if it wants."

-- Hullabaloo: "[W]e do have to consider the obvious fact that [Howard] Kurtz and The Washington Post believe that this blatantly partisan Republican blogger 'balances' an allegedly 'left -eaning' White House critic. That they still don't understand the difference between the conventions of overt partisan media and mainstream online criticism like Dan Froomkin's column is painfully clear. That this particular blogger has been exposed virtually overnight as a racist and plagiarist proves that they had no idea how the right-wing media works."

-- Oliver Willis: "The braniacs at the Washington Post have decided that they should sign up a right-wing blogger. Okay. I'm sure there's a liberal blogger to even it out. What's that you say? They don't have one? Oh, okay then. ... The bastion of journalism that uncovered Watergate and printed the Pentagon Papers is devolving into yet another mindless oultet of the conservative cult."

Traveling back into real time, Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters ponders what might be necessary to balance Kos: "I'm not certain that I would be a complete analog to Markos in any case. I try to expand minds, not explode heads; a proper balance would have a conservative willing to match Kos' stridency on topics, and hopefully with better arguments."

UPDATE: RedState has a list of prominent bloggers on the right who haven't been approached by Newsweek, including anyone from its own site.

Posted by Danny | 03:11 PM

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