Burnt Orange Report

Mainstream Media on Perry

By Byron LaMasters

Well, as I predicted, the Austin Chronicle reported on the Perry rumors:

For the record, Naked City looked into the Perry rumors when they first surfaced some weeks ago – inevitably accompanied by the warning, "The divorce papers are being filed today!" – and found no evidence of any truth to any of them, whatsoever. Amid much finger-pointing about who was the original source (and which political party he or she belongs to), nobody will go on the record. The governor's office (perhaps understandably) refuses any and all comment beyond a one-sentence statement from Perry spokesperson Kathy Walt: "These are false, malicious, and hurtful rumors, and the Chronicle's own investigation acknowledges that fact."

We also know that numerous other reporters, from here to New York, have looked into the rumors, with, as far as we know, an identical lack of results. Nor do we expect anything we say here to have any effect on the rumors, which have become entirely self-replicating as they echo through the blogosphere.

The Quorum Report wrote this:

Like most news organizations, we here at the Quorum Report have wrestled with a relentless rumor mill over the last month and a half that has proven to be little more than an enormous distraction.

We are not going to get into all the details of ever-morphing rumors about Governor Perry, but the last six weeks make Monty Python movies seem like serious political discourse.

We break our silence because -- well frankly -- enough is enough.

This publication is as wired into the Texas political scene as well as any other, and more wired than most. We pride ourselves on our breadth of both traditional and non-traditional sources.

We have not been able to find even a scintilla of corroboration for any of the rumors. And since the rumors change every day, the matter is now simply silly.

I posted on the Perry rumors, because I thought that there was legitimate cause to warrant investigation by the mainstream media. I still don't know if there is any truth or not to the rumors, and I was very clear in all of my posts on the issue that the scandals regarding Rick Perry were only rumors. I've received multiple emails over the past week from people claiming to know something, or able to prove something regarding the scandal, but I haven't received anything that has proven the suggested rumors. I've certainly appreciated the increased traffic, and I hope that it continues, but if you're coming back here to see me post more on the Perry rumors, in all likelihood, it won't be happening unless something big is uncovered by the mainstream media.