* Mark Brown…

Perhaps the most stinging anti-Rauner attack came from U.S. Rep. Tammy Duckworth, the wounded Iraq War veteran who is seeking re-election to her northwest suburban congressional seat and was Wednesday morning’s keynote speaker.

She hit Rauner hard, later likening him to a “deserter” for investing some of his personal fortune in funds and stocks based in the Cayman Islands, a notorious tax haven.

“I think if you’re avoiding paying your fair share in your nation, that fits,” she said of Rauner when pressed on that label, considered in military circles to be the most derisive of all.

That’s disgusting and way over the line.

For crying out loud, it’s August and the campaign is already this ugly?

*** UPDATE *** Sen. Mark Kirk reacted today…

“If we use comments like ‘deserter’ and ‘traitor’ that normally those crimes have a capital punishment consequence, I’d say that rhetoric is probably too overblown for a country that wants to stick together and hang together,” Kirk said.

He was being too kind.