You know, if we're going to recycle scandals, can we at least recycle some of the more interesting and ridiculous older ones?

Suppose I told you that the Democratic presidential candidate was being accused of having an affair with a former staffer who was then allegedly shipped out of the country in order to hide the affair, all of this based on no more evidence than the fact that the staffer in question once worked for the candidate. You'd probably think I was talking about Alexandra Polier, the staffer who didn't have an affair with John Kerry.

No, no, no, silly billy. We're talking about a staffer who didn't have an affair with Barack Obama.

The whispers focus on a young woman who in 2004 was hired to work on his team for his bid to become a senator.

The woman was purportedly sidelined from her duties after Senator Obama’s wife, Michelle, became convinced that he had developed a personal friendship with her.

The allegations were initially circulated in August, just two weeks before the convention at which Obama finally beat his opponent for the Democratic Party nomination, Hillary Clinton.

The woman, now 33, vigorously denies the vicious and unsubstantiated gossip.

[...]

One of the sources who has been circulating the rumours admitted never meeting the woman but claimed he has spoken to ‘a group of African American’ women who are

her friends and believe she was mistreated.

‘They said she was removed from her position and the political scene because Michelle got wind of the fact that she had a close friendship with her husband,’ the source said. ‘She disappeared, then she reappeared in the Caribbean.’

The Mail on Sunday located the woman in the Caribbean, where she now works. She denied that Mrs Obama had raised any objections to her job on the 2004 campaign.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Nothing happened. I just left ... at the end of the campaign.’

It's not so much that it's an incredibly conveniently timed fake rumor that's so transparent you can see your hand through the other side of it. It's that is the exact same conveniently timed fake rumor with a little bit of Michelle Obama being a crazy bitch thrown in to spice it up.

UPDATE: Alex Polier -- The Kenya Connection. It all makes sense now. Horrifically fucking stupid sense.