Nineteenth-century preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, “A lie will go ’round the world while the truth is pulling its boots on.”

That was more than 100 years ago. Today, misinformation travels even faster while the truth seems to have a hard time getting out of bed.

A recent rumor had the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency using drones, like those used by the U.S. military in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen to spot and kill terrorists, to spy on Midwestern farmers.

The ominous eye in the sky, if you will, and vaguely reminiscent of the 1970s rumor that the United Nations was using black helicopters over the rural U.S. to prepare us for occupation. By the way, that was not true, although that argument went on for decades and likely continues today.

It is never quite clear where this tantalizing sort of misinformation begins, but a Washington Post story linked the farmer-drone rumor to a letter sent by Nebraska’s members of Congress questioning the use of private aircraft to monitor farms for clean-water violations.

The EPA has been doing this for 10 years. It’s exactly the same technique police use to find marijuana growing on private property, to time speeders on highways and to help monitor the nation’s borders. In fact, planes are regularly used by the EPA to monitor large industrial sites like chemical facilities and oil refineries.

The use of military style drones was never mentioned in the letter, and it is unclear where that rumor began. But once afoot, it accelerated with warp speed.

Investors Business Daily was one of the first to condemn the nonexistent practice, combining quotes from the actual letter while adding the drone idea and emphasizing it with a photo.

“A drone flying over farmer Jones’ farmhouse seems a stretch that sets a dangerous precedent,” the editorial said.

Not only did the drones not exist, but many farmer Joneses have been replaced by corporations running industrial-scale farm, hog and cattle operations, often on thousands of acres.

And, as we have seen, yesterday’s farmer Jones can just as easily be a rogue farmer like Jack DeCoster, the egg baron.

In 2000, Iowa designated DeCoster a “habitual violator” of environmental regulations for problems that included hog manure running into waterways, perhaps the kind of problem best spotted from the air.

The actual family farmer may even welcome the tougher EPA scrutiny, since his family often lives downwind and downstream of the massive corporate farmers.

In any event, the EPA was not using drones to spy on farmers.

Still, as the Washington Post said, the rumor “provides a look at something hard to capture in American politics: “the vibrant, almost viral life cycle of a falsehood.”

The misinformation spread like a Colorado wildfire via Twitter, Fox News, “The Daily Show,” blogs and conservative websites.

Soon, congressmen themselves were stating it as fact and blaming President Barack Obama, even though the actual airplane monitoring started in the Bush administration.

Talk show panelists, meanwhile, were gravely condemning the nonexistent practice as “outrageous.”

The rapid replication of the rumor certainly reflects the partisanship of our times.

It shows the truth stands little chance against misinformation that fits a script and suits a political purpose.

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The opinions expressed in this column reflect the views of the ownership and the editorial board.