WE HAVE NOW OFFICIALLY ENTERED THE GUTTER
(updated)

Apologies for doing another Cain post, but this (from Glenn Beck's Blaze) is a hint of where we may be heading:

On his radio program Tuesday, Mark Levin aired a clip of veteran journalist and CBS anchor Bill Kurtis on WLS saying that Herman Cain's accuser, Sharon Bialek, is a former CBS employee with a "track record." Given her checkered past, a chuckling Kurtis posited that Bialek's and Cain's roles in the alleged car-incident could even have been reversed.

Yeah, you read that right. In case the point isn't clear, Fox Nation (where this is now the lead story) helpfully provides the following headline:

Chicago Media: Sharon Bialek Probably Sexual Harassed Cain

More from the Blaze:

Some of Kurtis' observations on Bialek were as follows:

"She has a history."
"There is a lot more to this story."
"I can assure you that there will be far more to this story."
"Let's put Herman or Sharon in the car and say their roles may even have been reversed, given her track record here."

Bialek worked for CBS radio station WCKG from 2006-2007.

Here's the clip. You'll want a shower after listening to it.





Please remember this when you hear that poor, defenseless Herman Cain is undergoing a "high-tech lynching."

And no, I had no idea that Bill Kurtis, whose presence on national TV I vaguely remember, was this kind of sleazebag. Maybe he needs some of that sweet wingnut-welfare cash -- after all, a company he co-owned filed for bankruptcy last year.

*****

OH, AND: I suppose this is more of the same gutter politics:

Using the power of his top-rated, nationally syndicated Clear Channel radio show, Rush Limbaugh on Tuesday repeatedly turned his AM wrath on a schoolboy and portrayed the 13 year-old as a villain in the Herman Cain sexual harassment saga....

Limbaugh even likened the young teenager to a Nazi storm trooper.

What prompted Limbaugh's bizarre outbursts? It was news that single mom Sharon Bialek had sat down with her son and told him about the encounter she alleges to have had with Cain thirteen years ago, and that her son then urged her to come forward and make her claim publicly. Limbaugh was enraged that a mother talked to her son about a pressing family matter, and that her son offered guidance.

From that innocuous premise, Limbaugh attacked the boy as a wannabe Nazi "brownshirt." ...

Hat tip: Atrios, who calls Limbaugh the Worst Person in the World, though I think he has competition from everyone involved in the Levin/Kurtis smear job.