Will Gawker's tell-all smear help Christine O'Donnell?

Pundits have condemned the gossip website Gawker for running a first-person account of a "one-night stand" with O'Donnell. Can she profit from the outrage?

In less than one full day, the website Gawker received more than 600,000 pageviews on its Christine O'Donnell "one-night stand" post.
(Image credit: Screen shot/ Gawker.com)

In an unusually divided election season, the website Gawker has united virtually everyone by publishing an anonymous first-person account of an alcohol-fed "one-night stand" with Delaware GOP Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell. What is it about this tawdry tale of a three-year-old, not-quite-sexual encounter that has conservatives, liberals, feminists, and all manner of journalists up in arms — and could it boost O'Donnell's flagging Senate campaign?

This smear backfired: Gawker's "accomplished quite a feat," says Tracy Clark-Flory in Salon. Since its "piggish" tell-all didn't even attempt to shed light on "her politics or character," O'Donnell critics like me now have to defend her. Whatever Gawker or its anonymous "ass" of a writer intended, the story only "makes her an immensely more relatable and sympathetic character."

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