The local blogosphere has its own self-proclaimed legal authority, Bernie O'Hare. Between Bernie's background and his temperament, he's a whole courtroom; prosecutor, judge and jury. Anyway, what brings us to this post is Bernie's statement last week that I implied that a commentator using a pseudonym might be Bernie, while knowing that wasn't the case. Bernie is simply wrong. By design, people comment either anonymously or with a pseudonym to keep their identity hidden. In some cases I might happen to know who the person is, but in this case, I do not. Bernie states that I knew he doesn't use a sock puppet because he told me so several times. Actually, what that reveals is that I harbored this suspicion, and questioned him about it. Although, I was polite enough to not further question his denials, it doesn't mean that I accepted them as gospel.
Bernie is offended because he considers such speculation an affront on his honor, which he is seeking to repair because of some issue in his distant past. Regardless of Bernie's personal history, or whether my speculation is correct or not, he should not disparage my reputation because he's defensive about his own.
ADDENDUM: I would have preferred to place this post as a comment on O'Hare's post about me. However, he made it clear that a comment from me would be deleted.
UPDATE: Bernie posted Friday June 9th, describing this post as an attack on him. In reality, this post is a response against his accusation that I made a speculation that I knew to be untrue. I suppose he believes that he is so persuasive that his readers will accept such distortions.
So long as that fabulous professional journalist, Bill "I Might Not Be Too Crazy About The NIZ If I Lived In, Say, Altoona" White of The Morning Call, is persuaded and impressed - this is the sort of thing that really matters.
ReplyDeleteI like how BO obviously has the special magic power to look inside a man's heart and then declare exactly why a man who has continuously expressed support for Israel's right to exist doesn't REALLY mean what he constantly says.
I just wish BO could practice real law in a real courtroom so he could really stop wasting the valuable time and energy of the Secret Service, that's all.
ROLF OELER