The so-called mainstream media (especially Politico) got beaten up in recent weeks up by some conservative media types for picking on Herman Cain.  Now it looks like the MSM did those conservatives a favor by thoroughly parsing — as they are supposed to do — the fire-brand Republican presidential candidate.  

With last night’s credible claim by Ginger White that she maintained a 13-year affair with Mr. Cain (she backed it up with phone records), the former Godfather Pizza chairman’s candidacy is effectively over.  One would expect him to be out by week’s end. 

One has to wonder what might have happened had those stories never come out. In all likelihood, Mr. Cain’s lack of foreign policy acumen would have sunk him, but what if it did not?  What if he became president? The blackmail implications are frightening to consider. 

Politics is often called a dirty business, but the two-party system and an aggressive press corps — of various ideological stripes — does turn over the laundry.  It may not be pretty, but it works.  Politico and others did the Republican Party — and the nation — a service in its reporting.