You may recall that last week, Bruce Whalen's (R) campaign manager started a vicious smear campaign about incumbent Dem Rep. Stephanie Herseth. He spread the lie that Herseth had gotten impregnated by her chief of staff and had converted to pro-life views as a result.

Now comes word that Whalen himself took this a step further: Even though the rumors had already been proved false, he confronted Herseth about them in person an event this past weekend.

Herseth spokesperson Russ Levsen recounted the episode to the Rapid City Journal:

"He approached her and confronted her and said, 'Is it true?'" Levsen said. "She said, 'I can't believe you're asking that.' And he asked again if it was true. And she said, 'No, Bruce, it isn't true.'"

Whalen refused to be interviewed by the RCJ, but the paper did talk to a Republican who condemned the incident: Sen. John Thune. "It's an unfortunate incident...It's probably accelerated because of the age of the Internet," said Thune, who, it should be noted, knows a little something about using the internet to smear political opponents himself.