Another Wunderkind Goes Splat

Back in January of last year, I did a rundown of some of the bad, bad, little writers out there who disgraced their profession. Y'know, Stephen Glass, Ruth Shalit, Jayson Blair.

Add a couple of new ones to the perp walk.

I was going to analyze Ben Domenech, the little blogger who couldn't, when that story broke a month ago. However, it dropped off the radar awfully quick, and seemed mainly of interest to a) other bloggers and b) the other media types. It was a very incestuous deal, all around.

Domenech was vile, childish, a disgrace to homeschooling. The real mystery was why WaPo online even hired a accident-in-progress like that to begin with, especially when a cursory dumpster-dive through his opere would have uncovered blatant plagiarism-- heck, he ripped of MaryAnn Johanson! The fiend!

But it was all over in a froth of reddish bubbles by week's end. And the weirdest thing about it was that Michelle Malkin turned out to have the tiniest scrap on integrity.

This latest story, though, is a doozy.

Move along, Ruth Shalit. Meet La Plagiarista, V. 2.0

She's a Harvard undergrad. She's only nineteen. She's cute. And the entire affair has an ethnic twist to spice up the lily-white world of plagiary (Blair was an outlier, I tell you).

Away, Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin. Welcome, to your ranks of the hard-bound and dodgy, the latest Little Miss.

Kaavya Viswanathan, take a bow.

The story is very entertaining, and still somewhat in progress, so I'll be a lazy blogger and link to Slate's extensive coverage of How Kaavya Viswanathan Got a Book Deal, Got Published, and Got in Big Trouble.

She's a nice counterpoint to Domenech-- he's homeschooled, "attended" College of William and Mary but left without papers. She's in Harvard. He's shameless. She claims memory issues. He's a white boy, she's... well, you get the point.

And they're both in big trouble. Dunno what Domenech's done since WaPo canned him, but Viswanathan's book is being yanked from shelves as we speak.

I'm enjoying this one, oh yes.