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Michael Silver part ii

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"...I learned that Ireland asked Bryant if his mother was a prostitute. I called the Dolphins and gave Ireland an opportunity to share his version of the conversation with me well before I filed my column, and (as noted above) he declined to comment. Shortly after my column was posted, he called Bryant to apologize, and he issued a public statement indicating that he was sorry. Three days later, SI’s Jim Trotter (who is a friend of mine, despite our disagreements on this particular issue) posted this Ireland friendly version of the conversation’s context according to "two sources familiar with the conversation" and, as he later described them, "two members of the Dolphins organization." Not too long afterward, Bryant texted me to refute the version offered by Ireland’s defenders, writing, "I did not say that … this guy is lying." Subsequently, Bryant also expressed this to me over the phone. So, to sum it up: Bryant, one of the two people in the room during the interview with Ireland, stands behind the story that I presented to you last Tuesday (and, before that, in a column that ran http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=ms-bryant042210">during the draft’s first day. Ireland’s sole public statement has been an apology for having asked the question. And yet you’re convinced that the unnamed sources who spoke to Trotter (and, apparently, some ESPN analysts as well) are the unassailable broadcasters of truth?