Domenech called Coretta Scott King a communist

Summary: Washingtonpost.com's newly hired Republican blogger Ben Domenech called Coretta Scott King "a communist."

Republican activist Ben Domenech, recently hired by The Washington Post to launch the Red America weblog on washingtonpost.com, called the late Coretta Scott King a communist, as noted by The News Blog. In a February 7 post titled "With Regard to Today's Funeral Political Rally," RedState.com blogger "Blanton" condemned King's funeral as a political rally for the left while claiming that he has "a clearer understanding of why the culture of so many black Americans in this country is below what it should be and is capable of being." Domenech responded to Blanton's post under his reported pseudonym "Augustine," titling his comment "The President visits the funeral of a Communist."

As Media Matters has noted, while Domenech's partisan Republican credentials are well-established -- he served as a speechwriter for former Bush administration Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson and for Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and is a co-founder of the partisan blog RedState.com -- his journalism credentials are much thinner, seemingly limited to writing for conservative publications such as Human Events Online, National Review Online, The Washington Times, and The American Conservative during his teen years.

In his introductory Red America post, Domenech criticized the Post's editors and the "mainstream media" in general for, among other things, "treat[ing] red state Americans as pachyderms in the mist," being "slow to recognize the growth in conservative America," and failing to recognize "the greatest pro-gun movie ever" (the 1984 Patrick Swayze/Charlie Sheen vehicle "Red Dawn"). As recently as March 2, "Augustine" trashed former washingtonpost.com editor Dan Froomkin -- who now writes the Post website's "White House Briefing" column -- on RedState.com, writing that Froomkin's "status as leader of the hack is without compare." "Augustine" also attacked Democrats as "The Party of Death" in a January 24 entry on abortion.

—B.A.