Clinton's former sidekick just can't help himself]
Excerpt:
Here's why Gore said what he said: He can't help himself. In a continuation of behavior that has followed him throughout his career, Gore overstates, embroiders, or simply invents the facts he needs in the moment he needs them. Whether its the cost of medicine for his dog Shiloh or a trip with a FEMA director or most famously inventing the Internet, Gore conjures up his version of reality as he needs it. Rarely does the public get to glimpse the process this closely.
There is no defending the stupidity of Lott's remarks. The 1948 presidential campaign of Thurmond was built on racism. Thurmond should not have been praised for running it, and Mississippi's vote for Thurmond is not likely to be featured on Mississippi's Greatest Hits reel. Lott has apologized for his "poor choice of words," and he needed to.
The farewell party for Thurmond – 54 years removed from that campaign and having long ago repudiated segregation – put Lott into a position where, with a little more felicity with words, Lott could have memorialized Thurmond's career without tripping over the embarrassment of 1948. Democrats have mastered the art of stuffing their segregationist baggage down the memory hole, and no one more than Al Gore – who never finds it necessary to discuss his father's own Senate opposition to civil-rights laws. Lott deserves the criticisms he is getting from all sides.
But Gore's psyche can't let him score just the points allowed following a gaffe. Gore had to add a late hit, had to invent a slander on Lott. No one else in official Washington is saying that Lott attacked integration. Just Gore. Just weird Al. Alone again with his own reality.
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