Arguably one of the toughest jobs on the world’s stage is to get two nations that have fought each other for over 60 years, to sit in a room and talk about a peaceful solution to their ongoing crisis. Last week America, once again, successfully got the political leaders of Israel and Palestine to attend a conference for peace, but this massive achievement, which has taken months upon months of planning, has been over shadowed in the United States, because of a rumour.

The American tabloid press, instead of reporting on the peace talks, are reporting that the current US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice is a lesbian, a story which has been floating around Washington D.C for quite a while. Ms Rice, who first served as National Security advisor to President Bush during his first term in office before becoming Secretary of State in January 2005 (at the start of his second term), is alleged to have been completely open about how sexuality whilst attending Stanford University, and in 1998 bought a home along with her ‘special friend’.

Whether or not these rumors are true is not a point that anyone should care about. Ms Rice is not an elected official, and even if she was it still wouldn’t matter. She was chosen for her job on the one characteristic that matters; are you the best person to fulfill all the roles required.

But within the world where the media has greater say than ever, about what’s going on, questions about politician’s private life’s are bound to endure even when they have nothing to do with the persons ability to their job. That said, there are always going to be people who want to know more, and last week alone 146,000 people typed into Google the words “Condoleezza” and “lesbian”.

It is not just Ms Rice who is facing claims about her private life, the candidates for the Presidency, unsurprisingly, are also having rumors printed about them. Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, is facing claims from the New York Tabloids that he tried to conceal the cost of security needed for him whilst he was with his mistress. Whilst on the Democrat’s side Senator Clinton has faced claims that she is having a lesbian affair with one her campaign staffers, and former Senator John Edwards has faced claims that he has having an affair with one of his campaign aides, whilst his wife (who has cancer) campaigns for him elsewhere.

In both cases these stories have been dismissed by the candidates as un-true and a part of smear campaigns, but as long as these stories are published, then the rumors will continue and people instead of making a decision of who to vote for on the issues that matter, will make ill-informed decisions based on politicians private life’s.