Anatomy Of An Internet Rumor

Last week, a few local Democratic blogs in a southern state began circulating a rumor that a prominent statewide elected Republican official had been caught in bed having sex with a male staffer by his wife. The rumor had it that the young up-and-comer, who towed the conservative line on things like gay marriage, would be announcing his resignation shortly. Word had it that Sen. John McCain's campaign had acted quickly and removed the next Larry Craig from an official role in his campaign. The rumor quickly spanned across the Internet, being touted by the usual liberal suspects as an another example of a hypocritical family values Republican gone bad. By the time it made it's way to the Daily Kos, it wasn't just a rumor, it was a fact. Some local Indiana blogs (including those critical of this blog's decision to report Larry Sinclair's sex and drug allegations against Sen. Barack Obama) jumped on the bandwagon as well.

Well, guess what, the resignation of the official never took place. A planned press conference to address the claim was supposedly called off after the state's leading newspaper decided there was no story to report. One of the local blogs began back-peddling on the story. The blog wrote:

A source close to (Blank), in adamantly denying the allegations about (Blank) in rumors that are circulating, called the rumors “atrocious” and “as bad a smear attempt as (Blank) faced in 1998.” ((Blank) was a Republican candidate for Lt. Gov. in 1998 when he was confronted with accusations that he assaulted and raped a prostitute. The accusations where shown to be false, and (Blank) won the election.)

Another local blog, which is no fan of the high-ranking Republican in question, offered this prescient perspective on the effort to make the rumor true on Internet blogs:

Over the last few weeks of this rumor being propogated, and the last week of this being all over the Internet, there hasn’t been a single shread of corroboration that anything has happened except that (Blank) and his wife are on the outs.

Guess what guys? That story’s pretty old. Here’s a big secret (Blank) probably doesn’t want you to know about. A lot of people that work with and around him don’t like him, and they talk smack about him to me and others (mostly others, and then it trickles down to me weeks later). I didn’t bring up his purported marital problems because it didn’t even occur to me to bring it up . . .

And that record is often believed and spread beyond our small group of readers and beyond the Internet. So it becomes accepted by many that Barack Obama is a Muslim who doesn’t say the pledge of allegiance, the September 11 attacks were actually a government conspiracy, and (Blank) is actually gay . . .

So my conclusion is that (Blank) shouldn’t resign over this petty crap, and those of us who are his vocal [and reasonable] opponents shouldn’t jump on this bandwagon of slander. (Blank) is unfit for office and has a history of ethical lapses, immature actions, demagoguery, and politicization of his official duties. Do we really have to stoop low and become rumor spreaders? Do we need to go so low as to make unfounded accusations about his sexuality, especially those of us who cite his homophobia as one reason for our opposition?

What happened to this prominent southern politician this past week is simply inexcusable. The blogs on the Left will do anything to destroy a Republican, no matter how harmful it is to the wife and family of the politician whom they are targeting, and justify it based on political ideology. I know nothing about this Republican official. Maybe there is some truth to the rumors, but it seems to me there should at least be a person with some first-hand knowledge stepping forward with information before you go and spread it all over the Internet. You can't google this man's name without reading all kinds of stuff about what a hypocritical, closeted homosexual he is now. And based on what? As one local blogger said after the fact, "Did any of you even bother to ask his wife who supposedly kicked him out of the house if it was true?"

We saw this same thing earlier this year when a local Democratic blogger published a false and defamatory claim that a Republican candidate for Congress was gay and then had the audacity to claim he considered the Republican candidate a friend and meant no harm by it when called out on it. The same Democratic blogger did the same but even worse to an openly gay Democratic candidate for Congress in 2006 so it came as no surprise. Nationally, one blogger has made a name for himself outing closeted homosexual politicians, as long as they are Republicans. He has repeatedly published unsubstantiated rumors about a southern Republican governor being gay. He even named a young male staffer with whom the governor had supposedly had sex, only to have the male staffer later deny the claim. As I learned a long time ago, with these kinds of people, their ways are always Machiavellian. The ends always justifies the means. If it can destroy the person's political career, it's justified whether it's true or not.

Note that I have intentionally chose not to link to any of the blogs in question or identify the name of the politicians in question to avoid propagating the rumors associated with these politicians' names. It's easy enough for you to find on your own by doing your own google search. I'm not going to give them the satisfaction of boosting traffic to their sites, which is the reward they are seeking for their dirty deeds. Several of the usual suspects attempted to post comments about the rumor pertaining to this politician on this blog over the last several days anonymously, of course, as they always do when carrying out their dirty work.