The continuing farce that is the Herman Cain campaign again took many turns today. So many in fact that it was hard, if not impossible to keep up with them all, so I won't even bother in this post or it will get far too long. One big one was Cain's campaign manager Mark Block (aka Smoking Man) walking back his inflammatory comments from yesterday that the Rick Perry campaign, and specifically a recent addition to that campaign was behind the leaked news of sexual harassment charges. It was pretty clear the Cain campaign had no real evidence for their own accusation against Perry, beyond the coincidental, yet they felt compelled to attack the Perry campaign anyway, a diversionary tactic which not only failed, but raised the ire of the Republican Party. Campaigns do such things when they're floundering to get a hold of situations seemingly beyond their control.

MARK BLOCK (11.02.11): The actions of the Perry campaign are despicable. Rick Perry and his campaign owe Herman Cain and his family an apology.

I've included a brief clip with Bret Baier from yesterday, and one with Megyn Kelly today to compare and contrast. Note also that Block wasn't just caught up in the moment yesterday with some emotional rhetoric but mostly read from a prepared statement.

BLOCK: All the evidence that we had on what's transpired in the last two weeks led up to Mr. Anderson as being the source. We were absolutely thrilled that he came on your show and said that it wasn't him, because Mr. Cain has always had the utmost respect for him. I'm going to do the same thing that Mr. Anderson has done and move on, talk about the issues and get off this silliness as he called it, and let's get on with the campaign.

MEGYN KELLY: Do you stand down then from your accusation that the Perry campaign is behind what you've referred to as a smear?

BLOCK: I will stand behind what we said yesterday and was, again, thrilled that Mr. Anderson said it didn't come from him.

MEGYN KELLY: With apologies, I don't mean to belabor the point, but I think I might be confused. Yesterday, you accused Mr. Anderson who works for Perry of being being behind it, and today you say what?

BLOCK: The things that we had been told yesterday, as an example, I think that you had also reported that a lawyer for one of the super PACs supporting Perry also had miscellaneous..er.. erroneous information in a radio station in Oklahoma. Until we get all the facts, I'm just going to say that we accept what Mr. Anderson had said and we want to move on with the campaign. Let's get over these things that don't mean anything to the American public.