Last weeks View from Prospect Hill was a commentary about how the “rumor mill” can produce some wild stories, disinformation and generally leave a destructive wake if we as people can’t separate the truth from fiction. What makes our jobs harder here in reporting regular stories is that people, for one reason or another, just love to embellish – sometimes even lie.

Take for example the front-page story in our paper last week about how the Mayor was allegedly threatened. The person who supposedly made the threat commented to us, on the record, about how he was vigorously supporting one of the mayor’s opponents and referenced the mayor as his “godson.” You wouldn’t mind, but there were enough people who have heard that this person was in fact the mayor’s godfather, that it seemed plausible enough to believe him – even without a comment from the mayor himself.

Come to find out over the last week that the line between embellishment and straight up lie gets very blurry at times. The truth is that this person isn’t “godfather” to the mayor or anyone else in the mayor’s family. What a shock – someone told an untruth to a local newspaper.

It made good reading though – and maybe that’s what this person and the candidate he is supporting were looking for all along – some kind of twisted validation via the press in a story that is as absurd as some of the people in it. This type of delusional and whorish behavior is not uncommon in Somerville’s political scene – we have all seen it over the years – and it won’t be the last time for sure. That doesn’t make it acceptable though.