HeightsMom's Response To Tim Russo

Cindy Zawadzki, the Cleveland, Ohio-based proprietor of the informative HeightsMom blog, which offers "A Moms Perspective on Politics, News and Events, Culture, Grassroots Politics, Attachment Parenting,and Family Life in Ohio," responded June 9, 2006 in comments to a June 8, 2006 post in The Blogging Journalist headlined "Tim Russo: 'HeightsMom Didn't 'Reveal' Anything...'" Russo told me in a June 7, 2006 e-mail:

HeightsMom didn't 'reveal' anything....this situation has been public since the day of the arrest almost 5 years ago.  she was emailed the court record by someone, probably sherrod brown's campaign.  she is not some sleuth.

Russo was responding to a June 6, 2006 Blogging Journalist post about him headlined "Cleveland's Tim Russo Stops Blogging: Why? " That post was prompted by an e-mail I received June 6, 2006, "from George Nemeth of Cleveland, who blogs at Brewed Fresh Daily, alerting me to a Cleveland Plain Dealer commentary on some members of the increasingly influential political blogosphere in Ohio. One of the consequences of that piece is that Cleveland blogger Tim Russo is closing his blog, Democracy Guy."

"So what do you blog about when the local paper reduces your net worth to the worst mistake you've ever made in your entire life?" Russo said in a June 6, 2006 post announcing a "requiem for his blog. "Hmmm...well...good question," he added.  "I'll leave that for others to decide, because I think I'm done blogging for a while.  A long while."

 

Russo's decision to quit was prompted by a Plain Dealer article headlined "From the left or from the right: a look at Ohio's political bloggers," which drew the following conclusion about him:

"Net worth: Clever and insightful, but has the sharpest tongue in the blogosphere; trying to rebuild credibility lost when he was convicted of importuning in an Internet sex sting."

In "Cleveland's Tim Russo Stops Blogging: Why? "I told Blogging Journalist readers:

Also see the National Review Online's Media Blog post headlined Blogger Quits After Newspaper Report.

Russo issued his statement about HeightsMom in response to a paragraph I quoted from the NRO that said, "Apparently, Russo's history was first uncovered in February by fellow Ohio political blogger Heights Mom, who wrote about it here. Russo's case file is here."

Following is Zawadzki's entire response to "Tim Russo: 'HeightsMom Didn't 'Reveal' Anything...'": 

Although it is public record - I was not emailed anything. It was pretty easy to figure out he had a past by his interactions with others. Even so, I never expected to find that he was arrested for soliciting sex from a minor.

Mr. Russo was blogging about anonymous bloggers coming clean and he stated that the "blog police" (him and a few others) needed to know the "background" of certain bloggers to establish credibility in the blogosphere. I just wanted to write a diary that said "See look - background doesn't change anything - and people should be allowed to remain anonymous" also "that noone has the right to be the blog police" Unfortunately, Mr Russos past threw me for a loop - I was shocked.

It is a fact that Mr. Russo has a criminal record, it is a pure lie that I was "contacted". If anything, I was inspired by Mr. Russo and others, who used similiar searches on an anoymous blogger to "out" his identity the previous week. Mr. Russos record is public - it is not rocket science to search the criminal court docket. That is why it is there.

I moved HeightsMom's response from comments to the front page because I thought what she had to say was important, and because Russo's statement was given prominence. I don't intend to shut-off comments to anyone interesting in commenting on this matter. However, this is likely the last time it will receive prominence unless there is some compelling reason to do otherwise. Right now, I can't think of one.