Sarah Palin and Glen Rice Combine for Greatest Rumor in Decades

What makes a juicy rumor? If you need a lesson in what makes a perfectly formed scintillating piece of innuendo, you can't do much better than Wednesday's bombshell that involved Sarah Palin, Glen Rice and one night of unbridled passion. 

I woke up Wednesday morning, not knowing that I would be hit in the gut with words like rumored and allegedly, followed by the names Glen Rice and Sarah Palin. 

Before this morning, the only way I would have been able to connect the two would be through a four-hour long session of six degrees of separation—Glen Rice played with Shaq, who was in Blue Chips with Nick Nolte...and so on.  

Well now you can adjoin the two by, one. That one would be a crazy night in which the two are alleged to have bumped uglies, pretties and every other thing.   

He Shoots He Scores

Where did this ingenious little rumor sent from God originate? The National Inquirer got a hold of an advanced copy of Joe McGinniss’ highly-anticipated book, The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin.

The book has an excerpt that mentions one night where Rice and Palin met after the Great Alaska Shootout in 1987. Rice was a junior at the University of Michigan, and Palin was working at KTUU in Anchorage. 

The book establishes a number of things, of which only Rice and Palin know are true. According to the report, Rice was contacted by McGinniss and confirmed the tryst.

Among the steamy allegations: Palin is said to have taken part in cocaine use with her now-husband Todd, the man she eloped with mere months after the alleged Rice encounter.

Raucous Rumor

Let's take a grain of salt, and measure it with a dab of temperance. This report came from the National Enquirer, a tabloid that I would mock freely as a child standing in line with my parents at the market.

We also have just one side of the story, McGinniss'. After that, we can only hope that either Palin or Rice come forward to confirm this very random tale in public.

That being stated, this is truly an amazing gift for a random Wednesday in September. In one corner, we have a right-wing politician that once took up arms for abstinence-only education.

In the other corner, we have a retired NBA star that lived behind the three-point line, and happens to be black. That last point may be the biggest aspect of this story.

We are not children, and I don't live in a vacuum. This rumor really shouldn't matter, but it will fuel national fodder for weeks. In all honesty, this is a tale of one woman having a sexual encounter when she was single. Allow me to shrug in sheer boredom. 

The reason that this is getting such heat is because Rice is a black man, and Palin is a white woman that happens to lead a very conservative charge. 

As I poured through the coverage of this rumor, I didn't see one mention of this. Yet, it is the main theme on Twitter. 

There is this tweet exclaiming Palin's thoughts on Bristol dating a black man. Here is another that is far more upfront about the sentiment.

Even the report cites the book as stating Palin had a "fetish" for black men.

Conclusion

There you have all the elements for a rumor that will stir a nation, a puritanical nation that is still not yet comfortable with some subjects.

You take race, sports, politics and shake it with a great big heaping dose of sex, and you have yourself the story of the year.

I am still wiping sleep from my eyes, trying to make sure this is real. It's not everyday that you get hit with a simply amazing tale that will be soon beaten like the dead horse it truly is. Nobody should care about this, but that is not how this rumor thing works.

Take a bow, you two are involved in the greatest rumor in decades.