http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/19/opinion/one-sided-political-rumors.html 2016-09-20 10:08:56 One-Sided Political Rumors A reader says rumors are “nearly always hatched by Republicans against Democrats, and almost exclusively smearing the Clintons and Barack Obama.” === To the Editor: Zeynep Tufekci’s Op-Ed article on political rumors, “ First, these rumors are one-sided, nearly always hatched by Republicans against Democrats, and almost exclusively smearing the Clintons and Barack Obama. Behold all the fanciful rumors (Whitewater, Vince Foster’s “murder,” drug-running) during Bill Clinton’s presidency, but a lack of rumors against his rivals, George H. W. Bush and Bob Dole. Mr. Obama was pelted with irrational rumors (foreign born, Muslim, Communist), yet his opponents, John McCain and Mitt Romney, were not. Now Hillary Clinton is the target of vicious smears (she’s dying, Benghazi, emails) while Democrats use Donald Trump’s own words against him rather than inventing rumors. Second, these rumors are planted by political operatives on right-wing websites such as Breitbart and WorldNetDaily, get quoted on Fox News and then are “legitimized” when they are picked up by mainstream news organizations. Like Ms. Tufekci, living overseas gave me perspective on how other societies deal with rumors, but here, cynical manipulation of rumors is so finely tuned as to become an indispensable tool of political propaganda. JOHN WRIGHT Seattle The writer is the author of “The Obama Haters.”