More on the Motznik Blog

Rich Lord has more in today's P-G:

"I'm going to keep doing it whenever I need to set the record straight," he said. Mr. Motznik's first post blames Mr. Peduto, a mayoral challenger, for a Jan. 18 blog entry by Mr. McIntire, a former talk show host. That entry noted that some "versions" of a widely circulating story had Mayor Luke Ravenstahl (then a councilman) pushing a police officer in 2005, then getting off the hook thanks to intervention by former city Operations Director Dennis Regan.

After that blog post, Mr. Ravenstahl described the Oct. 31, 2005, Heinz Field incident as an argument with an officer, in which he was handcuffed, but not arrested or charged. He denied pushing the officer or involving Mr. Regan.

Mr. Motznik writes in his blog that "it seems like McIntire was led astray by Councilman Peduto. ... Boy, it must suck when you have such little credibility already and now you have Peduto, and his people, feeding you false information that you then post on the [I]nternet."

Here's the January 18 edition (it's virtually identical to what he wrote the day before) of the Macyapper blog.

THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF OPIEGATE

Word on the street: Opie was rowdy. Somebody called security. A cop tried to reign Opie in. Opie got belligerent and pushed the cop. Opie allegedly begged for forgiveness once they slapped the cuffs on him.

THAT'S RIGHT, THEY SLAPPED THE CUFFS ON HIM.

Then what happened? Even though Bobby O wasn't yet Mayor, he was virtually the Mayor because he'd already won the Democratic primary. Somebody, either Opie or someone on Opie's behalf, called either O'Connor or Regan and told them of Opie's impending dilemma. Cause dude, you can't push a cop and not get charged for it. Unless you're the a City Councilman with connections.

So according to this version, which some news outlet, broadcast or print (they're all dying to break it first)will break soon, Dennie Regan put the fix in to make Opie shoving the cop thing go away.

And here's what Motznik wrote about it:

“Word on the street”: a conversation was overheard in which McIntire was quite pissed off about false information that Peduto gave him. Peduto told McIntire that the Honorable Mayor Luke Ravenstahl “pushed” a cop and was “rowdy”…both untrue. Peduto also told McIntire that Mayor Ravenstahl “called either O’Connor or Regan” to get him out of trouble and that is the reason there was nothing made of this in 2005…also untrue. Boy, it must suck when you have such little credibility already and now you have Peduto, and his people, feeding you false information that you then post on the internet. No wonder, “according to this version,” McIntire called Peduto all pissed off. Maybe he will post a retraction and fess up to Peduto leaking the bad tips…probably not, that would be too much to expect from McIntire!

Notice anything? The two don't really match. For instance nowhere does McIntire say that he got the info from Peduto. Indeed he's on record denying it. From the P-G:

Mr. McIntire said Mr. Peduto had "absolutely, positively, unequivocally no" role in his posting...

And Motznik is incorrect when he says that it's untrue that Mayor Luke was "rowdy." Mayor Luke even admitted it. We should also note that Motznik doesn't address the handcuffs. We can then assume, I guess, that he doesn't think that that part of the story is untrue. But if it was, then why were they slapped on the mayor if he wasn't rowdy?

In any event, Motznik has made some direct statements of fact ("Peduto told McIntire that...") yet nowhere does he even hint at how he acquired that information. So now Mr Motznik has an obligation to explain himself. Does he have a source who told him that McIntire's source was Peduto? How does the source know? Was he or she there? Motznik said it himself, he's "going to set the record straight." Ok - he should start with his first blog posting.

It's all about credibility, baby. If in your first trip out into the blogosphere, you bullshit your audience, then how (indeed WHEN) can they ever believe you in the future?