CALIENDO CRITICIZES GOP BLOGGERS

MIDDLETOWN TOWNSHIP (MONMOUTH COUNTY, NJ): Middletown Democratic Chairman Joe Caliendo said that some anonymous bloggers from the GOP are being too malicious to their own party, as well as to Republican critics.

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Publication

February 20, 2007

POC: Joe Caliendo,
Chairman, Middletown Democrats
8 Daniel Drive, Middletown, NJ 07748
Tel: (732) 299-6470/Email: joe_caliendo@yahoo.com/
Web site: www.democratscalling.blogspot.com

CALIENDO CRITICIZES GOP BLOGGERS

MIDDLETOWN TOWNSHIP (MONMOUTH COUNTY, NJ):

Middletown Democratic Chairman Joe Caliendo said that some anonymous bloggers from the GOP are being too malicious to their own party, as well as to Republican critics.

"I have a blog myself, and I use it to put out information for Democrats in the township and even in the Bayshore," Caliendo said. "But I do not use my blog to hurt people in my party or outside of it."

Caliendo explained that a blogger, named "Monmouth Rastaman" and another, named "Ronald Reagan" are clearly involved with the county Republican Organization. There are many anonymous Republican bloggers, some very good and some very bad, he said. Similarly, these bad bloggers are claiming terrible things about people like Freeholder Anna Little and Courier Newspaper editor Jim Purcell.

According to Caliendo, "These Republican bloggers go online and say that Freeholder Little is living in a rundown house with her family and breaks the law somehow as a freeholder. They also say that Mr. Purcell has a drug addiction and some kind of porno addiction. I know Anna Little may be a Republican, but she is not living in a rundown house and she is not breaking any law that anyone in Monmouth County can see."

Caliendo explained that "if someone can't put their name on anything Online or not then they do not have credibility, or at least they should not."

Caliendo said, "Likewise, I have known Mr. Purcell for some years now and he does not have the reputation of being someone who uses drugs or tolerates them and it is not right for him to be labeled with this porno allegation either. Neither the things being said about Anna Little or Jim Purcell are right, and if they can be said about them then they can be said about anyone," Caliendo said. "If politics in this county has become about lying outright and beating up families, then there is no good in it. And I might say that it has not been Democratic bloggers that have indulged in this kind of behavior."

According to Caliendo, he has known and respected Anna Little's family since she was a girl and has no intention of seeing her and her family attacked like this without reason "regardless of what party she is in." Similarly, he has known Mr. Purcell as someone who has criticized the Middletown and County Republicans over the years "and this is the worst kind of thing to do someone who just criticizes government decisions…lie about them because you don’t like what they say and you have no answer for it."

Caliendo said he does not know who these anonymous bloggers are, and neither do most people in either party. But he does know that this is a “new low in Monmouth politics that can't stand."

Caliendo said that these bloggers are attacking Little because "she doesn't vote the way the party machine wants her to." They are attacking Purcell because "he writes about the kind of truth the GOP doesn't want to hear about." As a result, Caliendo said, "This party that is supposed to be so much about 'family values' is going for the throat of anyone who disagrees with it and that is not even American let alone fair to do."

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