[William McKinley]

To me, that is part of the problem. Why on earth should resources have been spent trying to confirm or deny the rumor?

When someone would try to get the media to bite on it, the media should immediately have put that person or those persons on the spot and said for them to prove their allegations. If they refused, then the media should have immediately reported an attempted smear.

That is the only way these politics of personal destruction can be combatted. And it will only happen if we raise a stink when the media plays along and is complicit, as they were in this case, in letting a whispering campaign fester.

[MEG33]

Emails and the internet can be very anonymous...hard to confront but the rumor mill and gossipers just keep going.

[deport]

What would be the purpose of this smear since the Governor isn't on the ballot this year? Would it be to smear Republicans in general and all the candidates that the Governor has endorsed? It has to be state/local in nature as I don't think anything they can do with Perry will impact the President's race.....