Blog "libel" during elections... and in domain names?

So Cincinnati has a mayoral election in less than a month, and the campaigning has been quite muddy.

It's not the candidates directly, though. Cincinnatians are committing what is arguably libel-by-blog, with lengthy comments about the candidates' sexual preferences and one parody website asserting that a candidate shares traits with Hitler.

Gotta love free speech.

Some of the insults have come in the comments sections of sober blogs - such as the "Cincinnati Politics" blog at the major daily newspaper - but others come from the actual writers of blogs.

I suppose it's a not a big deal when it happens in relation to national politics. People say the president is this, he is that. But when it's local, it seems different.

Here's one of the gems of e-journalism:

"[Candidate A] is too much of a coward to come right out and ask [Candidate B] if he is gay, probably because: (1) most people think [Candidate A] is sweet as pure sugar cane and realize the fake affair with [a woman] is a ruse ... we know that [she] is nothing more than an expensive prop used only when questions about [Candidate A]'s sexuality arise; (2) he knows Cincinnati voters would see his raising of the issue not only as irrelevant but ironic (one gay candidate -- [Candidate A] -- trying to make his seemingly-heterosexual opponent look gay)..."

Keep in mind that this is a response to someone else's muliti-paragraph blog-comment charge that Candidate B is gay.

So garbage is flying everywhere. It's like "your candidate is more gay than mine." Keep in mind that neither of these gentlemen has ever made a public comment about his sexual preference.

Commenting has now been suspended at the politics blog at the local newspaper.

The paper is in the process of writing up a policy on commenting, although I wouldn't be surprised if comments are never allowed again. Providing a forum for free speech, especially when one can do it anonymously with ease, can be quite a burden.

If you want see a website that is somewhat clever, yet full of unsubstantiated accusations, the links are below. I am aware of the ethical debate one must have with one's self about potentially "supporting" a website by visiting it. I only provide the links as a study in American politics; the choice to visit or not is yours.

Real campaign site: www.davidpepper.com
Parody site: www.davidpepper.org

Note: this is the same city that brought you the parody anti-Cincinnati-police site http://www.cincinnatipolice.com.

Clever... but pretty misleading, is it not?