Here’s how you launder a story: A supermarket tabloid is not a respectable news source (until, um, it is), but if you can get a respectable news source to comment on it, you’ve put it in play. Bonus points if the respectable news source brings it to your attention first.
So we’ve got Geezer flack Steve Schmidt emailing reporters: “The allegations contained on the cover of the National Enquirer insinuating that Governor Palin had an extramarital affair are categorically false.”
What allegations? What cover? What affair? Wait, what?
We of course refuse to stoop so low as to spread unfounded rumors. So here’s the cover to put the flack’s statement in context, and here’s a link to respectable Howard Kurtz dishing the details explaining the background. We thank you for helping us preserve our journalistic virtue.
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