There's been some talk out there about how a tour guide for Barack Obama in Mexico dropped dead from the swine flu the other day.  Now we've supposedly got the answer.

Frankly, the White House Press Secretary handled the issue awkwardly at yesterday's briefing with reporters, which only created more questions along the way.

One thing you learn pretty fast as a reporter is that when you ask a question and you see the person dancing all over the place, you start to wonder what you are hearing.

At issue was a man named Felipe Solis, an anthropologist who had helped shepherd the President through a museum while Mr. Obama was visiting Mexico.

The rumors - obviously - were that Solis had died of swine flu soon after seeing the President.

Spokesman Robert Gibbs said he didn't know anything about the Solis link - which has been out there for a number of days now - and then gave the type of answer that always makes reporters wonder, when pressed for more information.

"If I didn't know the answer to the previous question, extrapolating on the follow-up is going to be hard for me to provide information, based on the fact that the basis of the previous question I didn't have any information to answer it," said Gibbs.

Later, the White House got the Mexican Embassy to release a statement saying that Solis had not died of the swine flu.

It won't surprise me if a number of people on the internet don't believe that, eh?

(Maybe this could be like the Clinton Administration, where people would claim that Solis was actually murdered, to keep him quiet about something. Who wants to start that rumor?)

What was odd about how Gibbs handled this question was that he kept returning to his stock answer that the President's doctors said his health was fine.

"So while I will check individually on your question, I think it's important to understand, for the eighth time, that there's no medical concern for the President," Gibbs said, prompting a retort from Major Garrett of Fox News, who acted like he'd never seen me before in his life when I last ran into him at the hardware store.

"Robert, just in my defense, my question wasn't about that," Garrett said.

Just another day inside the ropes.