Gore saying it's the Bush policies and tax cuts that caused this is so stupid , it's AlGore!!!!.
And like the poor stooge in a B-movie who discovers a murder and picks up the gun just as the cops walk in, guess who's going to be charged with the crime?
Gore's giving the media their cue. It's perceptions, not facts, that win elections. American voters beat Alzheimer's patients when it comes to short attention spans and memory loss (assuming they ever were given any facts to begin with -- we have to dig them out from media spin around here).
No, people, unless the Bush people kill this rumor quickly before it metastasizes through the media Gore-clones, it will become perceived "truth" to the voters on election day.