Meg Whitman would love to be California's next governor, but now she has to deal with chatter she was called "Evil Meg" by eBay underlings. All it took to sidetrack her campaign was a purportedly chatty staffer and a lawsuit.

eBay executive Garrett Price is fighting with Craigslist in court over what, exactly, he said about his boss during business negotiations five years ago, according to NBC Bay Area. Craigslist, the online classifieds company, claims he confided a ferocious picture of Whitman:

[Craigslist CEO Jim] Buckmaster testified that Price told him that former eBay CEO Meg Whitman could go from "Good Meg" to "Evil Meg," and that in her frustration with Craigslist was leaning toward the latter and becoming a "monster."

Price, naturally, denies all this. Maybe he was awkwardly trying to set up a good cop/bad cop dynamic; he was negotiating to buy a stake in Cragslist at the time. But it all comes back to the bottom line: This kind of talk will haunt you, one way or another.

UPDATE: Added video of Buckmaster's testimony.