The Smell of Defamation In the Morning

What a load of horseshit

UPDATED: Gramigna has retracted what he wrote, and what his source told him. That’s appreciated, but still horseshit.

Apart from this morning, when I called him in a rage, I can honestly say that I’ve never exchanged a single word with Gramigna, despite having helped him promote his dreck-laden site when he started it. His business model is: get local politicians to buy ads, print positive crap about them and negative crap about their opponents. Look for an alternative to completely decimate that business model, coming soon.

If I had written the offending emails – which I didn’t – I would have reprinted them last summer, when they were originally sent. They are alleged to have been sent by Mr. Gramigna’s newest advertising client, Syaed Ali. But I didn’t print them last summer. Indeed, I alluded to them a couple of times only in an off-handed manner. I had theories as to who might have been sending them, but someone in law enforcement somehow landed on Mr. Ali, and he alleges that he was subsequently placed into custody and that his belongings have been confiscated. I’ve gone on record saying that, if what Ali said is true, it’s a grave injustice.

Furthermore, if I had sent them, I wouldn’t have pimped them to mainstream media – I would have posted them on my site contemporaneously so that the TV and other reporters would give me linkage and credit.

But I didn’t write them, I wouldn’t have written them, I have nothing to gain from writing them, and never in my wildest dreams would ever conceive of writing something like that about anyone, much less an elected official.

For Gramigna, acting apparently as a conduit for the flailing Ali, to even suggest that I was behind those emails is a disgrace – and a defamatory one, at that.

I have my disagreements with the Brown administration – I don’t like their secrecy, I don’t like their sense of entitlement, I don’t like their Machiavellian machinations to try and upset ECDC and its endorsed candidates, and I don’t necessarily think that they do the best job for Buffalo. That doesn’t mean I would ever stoop so low as to spread vicious, defamatory rumors about him or his officials.

Is Pundit Behind Phoney Brown E-Mails?…What A Surprise!…Davis Gets Off!
Written by Glenn Gramigna, Editor

SOURCE WONDERS IF SELF PROCLAIMED PUNDIT REALLY BEHIND SLANDEROUS BROWN E-MAILS…WAS DAVIS TREATED LIKE ANY OTHER CITIZEN?…RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY ALIVE AND WELL ON LOCAL BLOGS

Any fireman will tell you that the first person who shows up to gawk at an arson fire is often the arsonist. Accordingly, one of our grey bearded sources is wondering if those wonderful guys who were nice enough to publish all those completely phoney and slanderous alleged e-mails involving Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown might not have been also their source.

“Isn’t it funny that the Pundit guys still had this junk after most others had long since deleted this junk,” he or she asks. “Also their chronic grammar mistakes and the ones contained in the bogus e-mails are similar…It kind of makes a fella wonder…”

Speaking of this and other local blogs, we understand that religious bigotry is alive and well these days on several of them. Blaming Islam for that horrible beheading incident in Orchard Park recently is like blaiming the Book of Revelations for OJ Simpson’s crimes. Are we really going to go down the road of religious ignorance and intolerance again?

I don’t even want to touch the relgious bigotry comment.

But what I did do is link to a post that Buffalo Geek wrote on the WNYMedia.net front page.

This, however, is my favorite part of Gramigna/Ali’s accusation:

Also their chronic grammar mistakes and the ones contained in the bogus e-mails are similar…It kind of makes a fella wonder

Gee, that sounds eerily like what a commenter wrote here, at Artvoice, regarding the writing style of the IMs posted, and text on Ali’s company’s website. I’m pretty anal about grammar and spelling – more so than Gramigna – so, I challenge Gramigna and his source to back up the statement that I make “chronic grammar mistakes”. That’s almost as offensive as suggesting I sent out the emails in question.

I think what pissed Mr. Gramigna’s source off is this last comment I wrote:

Whoever sent these emails last summer is an idiot, and an unimaginative one, to boot. These could have been made believable. To call this clumsy is an insult to clumsy things.

I’ll say it clearly and succinctly – whoever fed Glenn Gramigna the notion that I wrote the offending emails is the person who wrote the offending emails. Flushing that person out is precisely why I wrote those insulting lines.