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I happen to know that several major news organizations have for some time been looking into claims about portly conservative moralizer William Bennett and a leather-bound dominatrix bodybuilder in Las Vegas, a woman who has some very interesting narratives to recount. What news organizations? The top five that come to your mind are on the list. Some reporters have even traveled far and wide on this story.
Does this mean the story is true? No. It is "developing," as our favorite cybergossip character assassin likes to say, and it may go nowhere. Every day reporters track down leads and follow up on tips. Sometimes this goes on for a while and they may never nail down the leads. And that’s certainly true if there’s no truth to them.
It’s interesting, though, that Matt Drudge, whose standards are far lower than even those of the Weekly World News, hasn’t run a blaring headline like, "Bill Bennett in Grip of Imminent Dominatrix Scandal." I say that, of course, because last week Drudge ran a breathless "world exclusive" report of his own claiming that news organizations were chasing down "recent alleged infidelity" on the part of Democratic front-runner John Kerry.
Now, with regard to the Bennett rumor, take my word for it (and don’t ask any more questions right now, okay?) that several reporters have communicated directly with first-hand sources–as have I. But what Drudge claimed about Kerry was so ridiculously far removed from the supposed source that you’d have better luck using a Ouija board to determine if there’s any scandal in his future. The Washington Post and several other news organizations, Drudge claimed, had been looking into the allegations based on the rantings of a "friend" of a woman who supposedly had an affair with Kerry but who "fled the country" and conveniently couldn’t be reached.
The rest is good too.