I expected the smears to come as soon as President Obama nominated someone to the high court, but apparently CBS loves their Box Turtle Ben, a known plagiarist. Conservatives can do no wrong.

The White House ripped CBS News on Thursday for publishing an online column by a blogger who made assertions about the sexual orientation of Solicitor General Elena Kagan, widely viewed as a leading candidate for the Supreme Court. Ben Domenech, a former Bush administration aide and Republican Senate staffer, wrote that President Obama would "please" much of his base by picking the "first openly gay justice." An administration official, who asked not to be identified discussing personal matters, said Kagan is not a lesbian. CBS initially refused to pull the posting, prompting Anita Dunn, a former White House communications director who is working with the administration on the high court vacancy, to say: "The fact that they've chosen to become enablers of people posting lies on their site tells us where the journalistic standards of CBS are in 2010." She said the network was giving a platform to a blogger "with a history of plagiarism" who was "applying old stereotypes to single women with successful careers." The network deleted the posting Thursday night after Domenech said he was merely repeating a rumor.

As Duncan says:

Box Turtle Ben If you're a conservative, there's nothing you can do which will prevent you from being embraced and promoted by the liberal media.

Box Turtle Ben has admitted that he was spreading around a rumor. But why would CBS publish this unless it was confirmed? I would love to see a gay supreme court justice alongside Scalia and so would everyone in the liberal blogosphere, but we can't let the media allow rumors or lies to dictate any story. Even Howard Kurtz was annoyed.

But the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz, who broke the story about the WH pressure, thinks Domenech’s defense shows he doesn’t understand how serious the rumormongering was, tweeting “I don’t care about Elena Kagan’s sexual orientation, but for CBS to publish that rumor was obviously incendiary — and the WH was furious.”

And it doesn't matter if other liberals thought she might be gay, you don't write something about a person unless you know it's true. Box Turtle Ben was using the old whisper campaign routine.

I have a few other people that I would pick over Kagan for the court, but Nixonian dirty tricks are really offensive.

Digby writes:

Why? Because every woman who isn't married after a certain age is assumed to be a lesbian by some people, even if she isn't, especially if she doesn't look like a fashion model. And social conservatives and gay rights activists (for different reasons) have a vested interest in her being seen as gay. It's not an insult but it is a misconception and one that isn't entirely benign to the person who is the subject of it. If she says anything publicly to deny it, it sounds as though she has a prejudice against gay people and if she doesn't deny it, she becomes known as something she isn't. It's not fair. Ben Domenech is right wing hit man and always has been. And he's succeeded wildly here. The rumors are now "out there" and Cokie's Law is in effect. How a known plagiarist came to be employed by CBS is the more interesting story, actually. Especially for a man who's known to hire hookers to powder and diaper him and then sing him to sleep. Or at least that's the rumor. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

And here's where the origin of the Box Turtle began.