Democrats Don't "Do Message" -- at least when insider status is at stake

Here’s a prime example of liberals shooting themselves in the foot picked up today by The Daily Howler. Why is it still supposed to be funny to say that Al Gore claimed he “invented the internet”? At this point in time, why would someone liberal like Josh Marshall (Talking Points Memo blog) think it demonstrates his jolly good humor to continue circulating a grotesque canard about a leading Democratic figure? Is it to maintain or achieve some kind of Beltway insider status – sort of like a hazing, like will you go far enough as to publish something we all now know is patently false so you can be a member of the club? In other words, if you want to be accepted in our gang, you have to demonstrate your cred by doing a cold-blooded hit job? Just in case you are still not clear about it – crystal -- Gore never did say it or anything remotely resembling it in meaning. It was a flat-out lie intended to advance a storyline that helped put George W. Bush in the White House: that Gore was another Democrat with a problem telling the truth. So were all the other fabrications of what he supposedly said that were massively circulated by even mainstream pundits in 1999-2000 – “Love Story,” “Love Canal,” “Search for the Union Label,” “farm work in Tennessee,” and a few others I can’t remember right now. Fabrications by or on behalf of the Republicans – every one of them.