Democracy Has Prevailed.

January 25, 2007

The Latest from Johnny Mac

Looks like the Handcuffed Luke story's died down a bit as I didn't see any fallout from Johnnie Mac's latest:

The new source claims Opiegate went down this way:

Opie's Dad the DJ was at the game. He reportedly became concerned about his sun (sic) being led away in handcuffs, understandably. This source reports Dad called Bobby O, Bobby O called Dennie Regan, and Dennie put the fix in to get Opie off the hook.

Yes, Bobby O wasn't mayor yet. But everyone knew he would be soon, since he'd already won the Dem primary. Bobby O and Dad were thick as thieves because a long time ago, Dad's Dad, Opie's grandfather, lost an election to former Mayor Tom Murphy. So the Opie family hates Murphy. And of course Bobby O was a perennial Murphy opponent.

Few people remember that Opie, as a freshman city councilman, actually had the balls to call for Murphy's resignation. The long time family hatred contributed to this undoubtedly.

This is why Opie was always able to say he never called anyone. Because he didn't.
Dad the DJ couldn't call Murphy as explained above. He couldn't call squeaky clean just the facts ma'm Joe Friday guy Chief McNeilly, 'cause he, too, was a Murphy guy. Bobby O was his only option. And according to this source, he exercised it.

Take it or leave it, but that's what the man say.

I do want to reiterate something else the Macyapper wrote:

You may have noticed that Opie regularly selectively denies various versions of events, because rarely did reporters have the complete goods on him.

Although, as MacYapper previously pointed out, he lied to Rick Earle when asked about handcuffs, and lied to Marty Griffin when asked if there had ever been an "incident" involving police.

Can't say I disagree with that.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a coincidence. Just last week I emailed the yapper & said that, while many were defending Luke, saying he didn't call Regan or O'Connor b/c he had no real relationship with them, we were missing the OBVIOUS: Luke's daddy & granddaddy have/had friendships with Bob.

The incident occurred during a Ravenstahl family tailgate, daddy R was there to put in a call to his friend O'Connor, to make this icky handcuffs thing go away.

So, again, the interim mayor told a disingenous truth, it's true he didn't call O'Connor; the guy next to him, who happened to be his Dad & Bob's close friend, called O'Connor.

PittsburghJack said...

Justice Ravenstahl wasn't particularly a close friend of the late mayor and it's not fair to portray their relationship as such. it's very true that the Ravenstahl-Murphy relationship was a bitter one, to say the least. But in all honestly, that doesn't automatically make their relationship with O'Connor close. Secondly, there wasn't much O'Connor could have done anyway with regards to 'covering-up' the Ravenstahl/Heinz Field incident - whatever it may have been - as the hierarchy of the police department were still at that point in time Murphyites. Was a call made to O'Connor on Luke's behalf? Who really knows? But if one was made, it surely was more of an F.Y.I. and I can be certain that O'Connor took no action. And to allege that Dennis Regan handles the situation was preposterous, to say the least, as he had absolutely no power/authority at that time and frankly wasn't known. It's doubtful that if he made a call that the callee didn't accept it anyway as not having recognized the caller. Thirdly, if O'Connor had made any sort of call on Luke's behalf, it would have been to Dom Costa, inquiring as to who in the department should be trusted to handle the request. And you can be damn sure that if this happened, Dom would have made some sort of comment on it. From what I can ascertain about the incident is that the cop gave the councilman a break. I wouldn't read too much into that. Simple as that. You must realize to take what McIntire has to say with a grain of salt as he has no real knowledge or 'sources' (mainly because any potential sources wouldn't trust him anyway) and the allegations he is making verge on the line of defamation and opens him up to potential lawsuits.

Anonymous said...

So the cop goes through all the effort of making the decision to handcuff the kid mayor because the kid is being so obnoxious that he can't be trusted to be left alone in a crowd of Steelers fans (the visual image in my head is priceless), escorts him to a detention/security office for further processing & then, magically, w/in 15 minutes (if the kid mayor is to be believed), the cop changes his mind? Did the kid cast a spell on him, dazzle him with verbiage such as "I believe we can be positive about this and move forward"? Nah, daddy made a call, Quigley made a call, his supervisor Fisher let him go - somebody intervened for no other reason than the kid's official title, and that leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

And kudos to the kid's spin machine for making the story about macyapper and scaring the MSM into thinking it can't publish stories based on informants who don't wish to go public. As long as the reporter knows who the informant is, they aren't anonymous - with the exception of Pgh., stories are told all day, everyday based on information received from people who don't want to be the subject of retaliatory action by the subject of their information.

And as for defamation lawsuits, Officer Hoehn has one hell of a lawsuit against the kid mayor for what amount to accusations of false arrest. But, hey? What does Luke care - he lies, demotes people, defames people - the taxpayers will be stuck with the bill, not Luke.

Anonymous said...

It's idiotic to think Bob O'Connor couldn't influence events just because he wasn't yet mayor.
Already having won the Democratic Primary, he was a lock to get the job.
You wanna piss off the soon to be mayor if you're a cop? Don't think so.
And that is EXACTLY the kind of thing Dennie Regan did and if you don't get that, you don't get it.
How the hell would you have any idea if McIntire has any sources, any more than you know if someone made a phone call?
Pittsburgh Jack is just another in the tank Luke apologist... for whom the kid can do no wrong.

Anonymous said...

McIntire loves to have his name out there doesn't he?

I think his sources are Bert & Ernie at times.

Anonymous said...

I believe that the cop let Luke go when it came to his attention that he as a city councilman. A phone call didn't need to be made.

PittsburghJack said...

anonymous said: "Pittsburgh Jack is just another in the tank Luke apologist... for whom the kid can do no wrong."

This is simply not true. I just call them as I see them. Luke has made mistakes -- some huge ones -- no doubt about it. But I do not fall into the category as one who believes that a call was placed to Dennis Regan. That theory is ridiculous. Simply look at the timeline. That is nothing more than a half-baked fairy tale spun by an untalented, ex-part-time tv host with an ax to grind.

Anonymous said...

Good post pittsburghjack.

There wasn't any call made to Regan. It's just wishful thinking by this blog and by a washed up media type.

Anonymous said...

You know what I found interesting? How people attacked McIntyre, claiming that he was only making accusations about Luke because he was friends with Peduto, and I hear it even came up during KDKA talk shows, but KDKA didn't even mention that Yarone Zober was living in Jim Ferlo's house back when Ferlo was ding interviews in support of his young friend in July. I just think there's a double-standard.

Anonymous said...

why was zober living with ferlo in july? what was going on with his own house?

Anonymous said...

He was going through a divorce.