Call me quaint and old-fashioned, but I give most of the mainstream media a hearty pat on the back for refusing to spread the inflammatory and thoroughly unsubstantiated rumor that Michelle Obama once railed against "whitey" from a pulpit.

Fervent e-mails and blogs have buzzed since late May with "news" that a videotape would emerge of Barack Obama's wife spewing the racial epithet. The claim propped up a fantastical caricature -- the mother, lawyer, Ivy League graduate and potential first lady as a seething member of the hate-American-first club.

Both the media and Obama's presidential campaign faced the unenviable question of whether to ignore the rumor or address it head-on. Most news outlets and the campaign chose not to dignify the "whitey" claims with a response. But that changed Thursday, when the Obama camp issued a flat denial and also launched a website (fightthesmears.com) designed to "push back on false and divisive attacks."

New York Times Political Editor Richard W. Stevenson and others predicted that such claims -- "one of the trickiest issues that we as journalists are facing in this election cycle" -- will continue to light up the Internet.

Indeed, the Obama camp moved quickly to stamp out another myth Thursday, shipping a copy of the candidate's Hawaiian birth certificate to the dailykos.com website. That came in response to an Internet provocateur who implied that Obama had been born overseas, making him ineligible for the presidency.