If you've been watching Survivor this season, particularly this past Thursday, you probably came to the conclusion that Blake Towsley is kind of a dick. If you missed him on The Early Show the next morning, you have no idea.

On Thursday, you had the footage of him babbling incessantly about his infinite superiority--about his high school state sports championship, about his girlfriend's size double-D breasts, about his wild drunken debauchery--and you had the outcome of the episode: his three original tribemates, who had everything to gain by sticking together, may well have written themselves out of contention just to get a human being so vile out of their vicinity.

That was nothing.

Friday morning, after months away from the game to get over his astonishment and anger over being disliked, and mere seconds after thumping his chest for having played the game so honorably, he chose the most spineless method possible to slander his former adversary Brian with what he surely regards as the ultimate insult.

Brian badmouthed him in Guatemala, and apparently engineered his ouster. Blake got his revenge Friday by "accusing" Brian of being gay--by pretending to "defend" him.

Judge for yourself. I transcribed his full screed, no edits or omissions of any kind (though I didn't bother with a few quick echoes of his comments from Harry Smith, spoken at the same time as Blake, in the midst of it):

"The thing that I wanted to come away with more than a million dollars was my honor and my integrity, and I did that. The one thing that was kind of--everybody in the, everybody on the cast and everybody thought that that Brian was gay. And made it a big issue, and a big hot topic and I was, you know, he was adamant about defending himself on that and never once did I speak a bad word about Brian. They had me in interviews and they're like, He's not gay, but everybody thought he was. Brian and myself were the only two the exceptions to the rule. So I'd tried be a good guy for everybody. I think I got out right before it got ugly."

Yeah. Until now.

It's bad enough to out someone on national television. To "accuse" someone who claims not to be on--especially by pretending to defend him--yow. How low can you get?

It's no insult to me, but I'm quite sure it is in Blake's world. Still the most damaging epithet you can slap a guy with in many circles. It's disgusting to do that to Brian, and more disgusting to gay people to use the "charge" as an insult.

Blake mentioned watching the show every Thursday night, and knew damn well the producers had chosen not to air any of those "allegations." So he knew it had probably never crossed the minds of most straight people in the country, and how easy to point it out for them. And if they did already suspect, he was all to eager to provide the compelling evidence that everyone there--other than Mr. Integrity, of course--thought it was true.

Playing the gay card. I keep forgetting we're not past that.

And Harry Smith, of course, said nothing about the slimy slam.