St. Pete Picks Up Crist Story -- And Drops It

From Sunday's St. Pete Times: ------------------------ "NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT: He's denied it publicly, repeatedly, and clearly, but Republican gubernatorial nominee Charlie Crist has yet to shake the talk that he's gay. There is no evidence that it's hurting his campaign, but the Crist-is-gay chatter that went on during the Republican primary has now ramped up among Democratic activists and liberal bloggers after a South Florida alternative weekly weighed in on the matter. New Times Broward-Palm Beach did its part to "out" Crist with a recent story based on anonymous,

second-hand sources. The report said unnamed sources had heard a 21-year-old man say he had a tryst with Crist - the young man denied it - and that the man had named another man supposedly intimate with Crist. "There's no truth, just the ring of truth," is how the writer summed up his report. But it was enough to prompt bloggers and individual Democratic activists to flood reporters with e-mails demanding the media "expose" Crist. Crist, who is single and dating a St. Petersburg woman, called the account false. Campaigning through Central Florida Saturday, Crist's opponent, Democrat Jim Davis, said he had heard about the New Times article but hadn't read it and considered the issue irrelevant. "The issues in this campaign are education, property taxes and property insurance," the Tampa congressman said. -------------------------

The Times might have wanted to tell its readers that the "21-year-old man" was a GOP staffer and that the other "man" was known to be a Crist friend and was Katherine Harris's personal travel aide. Aw, but that might be more truth than their readers might be able to handle. This is, remember, the same paper that had the Mark Foley e-mails and didn't report on them because the teenaged recipient wouldn't allow his name to be attached to the article. The Times' new motto: "Don't Talk To Us Unless You're Prepared To Ruin Your Life."

Speaking of truth: How about the writer's blanket statement that Crist is dating a woman? Why that couldn't be a put-on, could it? Politicians NEVER do that. Ask Mark Foley. What gets me is that this issue is vitally important: If Crist is, indeed, gay and gets into the governor's mansion based on lies and hypocrisy, there's gonna be a huge scandal that's going to rock the state of Florida. And all the reporters and editors are going to have to explain why they never looked into it before disaster struck.

I'm getting a little closer to the truth, by the way. Stay tuned.




