It turns out that the scurrilous (I love that word!) rumor about Gary Condit was spread by none other than Lucianne Goldberg. This is from The Washington Post:

"Gamy speculation about Gary Condit's alleged sex life by Newsmax.com columnist John LeBoutillier -- who served a single term in the House from Long Island 20 years ago -- was almost immediately killed July 13 by his aghast Newsmax.com editors, but not before being launched through cyberspace in a fantastic voyage from the vast right-wing conspiracy through the vast left-wing conspiracy into the lap of the vast media conspiracy.

Scandal impresario Lucianne Goldberg got the ball rolling last Friday after receiving LeBoutillier's screed headlined "Gays, Bisexuals and Murder" in an e-mail from Tim Case, a 35-year-old cook for a catering company in Cold Spring, N.Y. Goldberg promptly sent it on to a list of lucky recipients including conservative columnists Ann Coulter and Peggy Noonan, Republican opposition research operative Barbara Comstock, New York lawyer George Conway, Women's Quarterly editor Charlotte Hays, Wall Street Journal editorialist John Fund, new CNN chief Walter Isaacson, Fox News anchor Tony Snow and MSNBC gossip columnist Jeanette Walls."