Condi Out as VP 'Cause of the Gay Thing? Really?

OK, so in the course of looking at stories about Clay Aiken -- Gay? Really? (Claymates in denial) -- I came across this interesting thing on Condi Rice and how she got eliminated from John McCain's ticket because she is supposedly (apparently?) gay. I had no idea.

According to a prominent member of the Republican National Committee privy to the search process, many in McCain’s inner circle argued furiously for the selection of Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice over the other top contenders, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Tim Pawlenty.“Once Obama selected Biden instead of Hillary,” said the source, ” they had this theory that Condi was the perfect candidate to put up against him. She’s tough, conservative and a hawk, not to mention a football fanatic, which would be more than enough for white men. ... So what went wrong? “It was the persistent rumors about her sexuality that ultimately killed her chances and removed her from the list,” says the mid-level RNC official. ... According to her biographer, Washington Post diplomatic correspondent Glenn Kessler, the never married Rice shares ownership of a house as well as a line of credit with a female documentary filmmaker, a liberal Democrat named Randy Bean. Digging through real estate records, Kessler discovered the pair’s co-ownership of a property in Palo Alto, California as well as a joint line of credit with a bank, an arrangement Bean has explained unconvincingly as relating to medical bills that left her financially drained. It’s possible that others previously investigating Rice’s background came across the joint ownership of the investment property and the bank account but assumed the name “Randy” belonged to a man. Rice once told a reporter that Bean is her closest female friend and that they bonded over their mutual love of football.