There may be no limit to the dirty tricks that can be played electronically.

“Do you believe me or your lying eyes?” That’s what many an altered computer screen could be asking a lot of us in this “marvelous” age of electronics.

The Internet and radio and television talk shows have made it horribly easy to circulate false and harmful information and images. The result of the ease of transmitting what amounts to “unsigned letters” is disgusting and terrifying. We should be horrified and fearful.

Slander-mongers such as the ‘Net’s Matt Drudge can circulate some rumor or lie around the world in seconds. Victims of such attacks are vilified in the eyes of many before the targets even know about it. And how can they respond in a reasonable way before vast damage is done?

Take the recent case of Sen. John Kerry’s alleged liaison with a former intern in his office. Read what Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times had to say after checking into the matter:

“In an ‘exclusive’ report, Drudge alleged that ‘several media outlets’ were investigating allegations that Kerry conducted a two-year affair with a young woman described as an ‘intern.’ Drudge also alleged that one of the Massachusetts senator’s rivals, Gen. Wesley Clark, had told a group of reporters ‘off the record’ that ‘Kerry will implode over an intern issue.’ Where was this woman? According to Drudge, ‘after being approached by a top news producer, the woman fled to Africa, where she remains.’ Her flight was ‘reportedly at the prodding of Kerry,’ Drudge subsequently wrote.”

Drudge’s “report” was not on the allegations themselves but on a purported investigation of the charges by unnamed media outlets. The reporters to whom Clark supposedly made his remark remain unnamed. Adds Rutten:

“Still, as the first person to circulate a report of President Clinton’s liaison with Monica Lewinsky — another intern, get it? — Drudge has street cred(ibility) as a keyhole peeper in some quarters.”

Kerry immediately denied the report and the young woman, a former Associated Press employee, now a freelance writer, denounced the tale. She was visiting her fiance’s family in Kenya, and her parents told The Washington Post they plan to vote for Kerry. Clark has since endorsed Kerry for the Democratic nomination.

Then there was a doctored photo showing Kerry, a decorated and thrice-wounded Vietnam Navy veteran, sitting with Jane Fonda, the controversial actress reviled by many for her wartime sentiments. The fake photo was a composite combining poses of the two people from different times and places.

But the picture was circulated widely over the Internet and even made some newspapers, false as it was. Again, the computer screen defied the viewer to separate fiction and fact. Some mentioned the old bit about a picture being worth a thousand words, in this case all in error.

With the political climate steadily heating up, we have only seen the surface barely scratched from the standpoint of dirty verbal and pictorial tricks. So much can be done deceitfully with so little anymore that the prospects are scary.

If the various media think they have a credibility problem now, imagine what the perception could be by the end of this election year as the various pseudo journalists manipulate their computer screens and talk-show audiences.

There are too many “media” types who clearly have no shame, and seem to be proud of it.