What happens in the campaign stays in the campaign.

• Author: Glastris, Paul
• Position: Editor's Note - Column

The 2012 presidential race is entering what might be called the "full public colonoscopy" phase, when the press really begins digging into every nook and cranny of the leading candidates' public and private lives looking for scandal material. Rick Perry, the new guy, has taken the brunt so far, with stories of his unfortunately named hunting camp and the surfacing of past investigations into his business and political dealings. Romney, the veteran, got a bit of the treatment when he ran in 2008 (remember how he once strapped the family dog to the roof of a car on a road trip?). This time, as front-runner, Romney can expect much deeper probing into, among other things, his private equity deals.

These ritual friskings occur in every presidential cycle. 2008 exposed Obama's relationships with Tony Rezko, Jeremiah Wright, and Bill Ayers. 2000 gave us tales of George W. Bush's struggles with alcohol and the failed oil ventures that ended with him getting bailed out by his father's friends.

But in the annals of primary campaign feeding frenzies, nothing compares to 1992. That year began with allegations about Bill Clinton's relationship with the nightclub singer Gennifer Flowers. Then came revelations about his efforts to avoid the draft. By spring, hordes of reporters were camped out in Little Rock, chasing down any and every hint of potential impropriety.

I was one of those journalists who parachuted into Arkansas during that time, and like many others soon found myself in the office of Sheffield Nelson, a Republican former gas company CEO who had lost the 1990 gubernatorial race to Clinton. Nelson was one of the chief purveyors of rumor and innuendo about the governor, part of a loose network of semiprofessional Clinton antagonists. He gave me a tip: he'd heard that Hillary Clinton didn't do a lick of work at the prominent local law firm where she was a partner, but was paid handsomely anyway because she was married to the governor.

I spent a week chasing down this charge before confirming that it wasn't true. After drilling one or two more dry holes on the suggestion of Nelson and others in his network, I concluded that they were too untrustworthy to be useful sources.

Other reporters saw things differently. That spring, Nelson put the New York Times investigative reporter Jeff Gerth in contact with James McDougal, a former associate of Bill and Hillary Clinton with whom the couple had invested in a failed real estate venture McDougal had put...