On Jun 4, 2012 Kingston Times published Our little corner of the blogosphere by Crispin Kott – an article already reviewed in Anonymous Blogging is as American as Apple Pie (where it was exposed as “an incredibly superficial look at online writing… as silly and out-of-touch as it can be”).
My beef with Crispin Kott is his professional superficiality. He asks around about blogging, then uses the answers to slap together a piece of journalistic fluff. In the process – intentionally or not – he lends credibility to Jeremy Blaber:
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Two bloggers on opposite sides of the political spectrum – Rich Cahill Jr. and Jeremy Blaber – have been going at it for years, mixing solid information with commentary…
“I think both of those have a tremendous amount of credibility in the blog world because you know where they come from,” Quigley said.
Blaber has a tremendous amount of credibility in the blog world?
Surely you’re jesting, Mr. Quigley!
Let’s see how two blogs reported the result of 2009 Republican primaries in our district.
Ulster County Mojo:
Blaber:
Which report would you say is more credible? Mojo’s or Blaber’s? Please pay attention to Blaber’s drooling: Terry Bernardo led a clean campaign, Terry Bernardo was smeared for 10 weeks by her opponent, a bankrupt Republican degenerate…
In reality, Blaber and Bernardo smeared Manuela Michailescu, trying to discredit her opposition to the infamous dirty deal cooked by Terry Bernardo’s husband.
Let’s read a paragraph from the Shawangunk Journal article Smear Campaign in Rochester? by Paula Sirc:
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On July 12, Jeremy Blaber, a Kingston-based political blogger, wrote that Michailescu’s campaign for legislature was bankrupt and called for her immediate resignation from the town board for residency violations. He claims that he received an email from an anonymous source with a user name of Rational in Rochester.
On July 16, Blaber posts the mother of all whoppers:
By posting the above lies fed to him by Terry Bernardo, Blaber facilitated a disgusting frenzy of hate, stupidity, lies and ignorance, all displayed in these 147 anonymous comments. Sure, Team Terry wrote the comments, but Blaber approved them. This statement was clearly visible on his blog:
- Comment moderation has been enabled.
All comments must be approved by the blog author.
Going back to Crispin Knott’s article, his using of the quote below it’s tantamount to journalistic malpractice:
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“I’ll tell people exactly how I feel, and I’ll always put my name on it,” said Blaber… “If you want credibility, you’ll put your name behind what you’re writing…Usually the anonymous blogs, they go after people but they don’t have the guts to put their names behind their attacks.”
Coming from Blaber, those are empty words. He slept in Bernardo’s house, ate her food, and wrecked her car. He published her lies and approved her comments. He willingly participated in a ferocious politically-motivated character assassination attempt that crossed the line into invasion of privacy, intimidation, blackmail, hate crime, ethnic discrimination, and interference with the electoral process.
Albeit about a different whopper, Rich Cahill’s description of Blaber’s blogging is fitting:
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“This is without question the most vicious, idiotic, foolish, nonsensical, moronic, unfair, juvenile, and hateful attack piece I have ever seen. I have followed national, state, county, and city politics for many years. I have seen some real nasty stuff thrown out there by irresponsible candidates. This, however, takes the cake.”
None of the above made it to Crispin Knott’s article – not really surprising, considering the state of investigative reporting in Ulster County.
There are no doubts about Terry Bernardo being behind the smear campaign against Manuela Michailescu. Here is just a sample of her effort, as exposed by Robin Vaccai Yess, the former Chairwoman of the Ulster County GOP:
Faking innocence in an email to Town of Rochester Republican Committee, Terry Bernardo inadvertently admitted the fact that she controlled Jeremy Blaber:
- “There are nasty and inaccurate statements posted about me on this website. I have asked Manuela to remove them. I asked her to remove them IN FRONT of Barbara. Manuela has refused. Not only did I get Jeremy Blaber to take down anything that referenced Manuela and Jon on his blog, Jeremy’s entire site is down now.“
Ever the master of non sequitur, Terry continues:
- “Even after that happened, Jon and Manuela showed up in the City of Kingston at Jeremy’s court appearance and were in his face taking pictures of him and of the court document.”
– Jon Dogar-Marinesco
Rochester Smoke Out 