Strange political bedfellows no more

On Thursday, The Washington Post published a story relating details of a "tense," "frank" and "blunt" meeting between Bill Clinton and Al Gore within days of the vice president's admission that he had lost his bid for the presidency to George W. Bush.

According to the paper, Gore was ticked off at Clinton because Gore believed -- correctly -- that Clinton's incredibly bad personal conduct, a.k.a. the Monica Lewinsky scandal and other related "personal behavior" scandals, had caused too many Americans to shun Gore either in favor of Bush or in favor of not voting at all on Nov. 7.

Clinton denied those charges -- because he's the king of denial -- and instead blamed Gore for losing his own campaign because he failed "to run on the strong economy and other issues in which Clinton felt both he and his vice president deserved credit."

"Just as voters made a distinction between Clinton's personal conduct and his job performance, Clinton believed Gore could campaign on the record without being tied to the president's scandals," said the Post, quoting former Clinton aides who spoke on condition of anonymity.

TRENDING: Report: Capitol cop who shot Babbitt is in hiding

It doesn't take a nuclear physicist or a home-schooled student to figure out that many people took out their Clinton frustration on Mr. Gore Nov. 7. But is Gore completely blameless? Of course not; his loss can just as equally be blamed on his own "personal conduct and job performance" as vice president.

True, Clinton sold U.S. national security to the highest bidding Chinese general; sold U.S. security and energy policy to Indonesian businessmen; became the first president to be impeached since Andrew Johnson; and lied about his and first lady Hillary Clinton's involvement in a dozen other scandals.

But Gore was right there in many cases helping Clinton either by covering for him or, in the case of the Russia-Iran weapons deal, actually helping this administration screw the American people.

And wasn't it Mr. Gore who illegally collected campaign funds himself at an L.A. Buddhist temple? And didn't Mr. Gore lie like a dog when he told congressional panels and Justice Department investigators that he couldn't be held liable for illegally making fund-raising calls from his own office because "there is no controlling legal authority" that prevented him from doing so?

Oh yes -- and wasn't it Mr. Gore who lied about playing an integral role in "inventing the Internet"?

Wasn't it Mr. Gore who lied on the campaign trail, telling one audience his mother used to sing him an "old union song" that wasn't even written until the vice president was in his '30s?

Though Clinton blames Gore's loss on the vice president's refusal to run on the "successes" of the administration, Gore did campaign on economic, tax, education and social welfare issues. Isn't it possible that he lost because most people didn't see things his way?

Yes, yes, I know -- "but he won the majority vote!" True, but he lost the majority of regions (states, if you will), meaning he lost electorally. And an "L" is an "L"; if his programs were so darned popular (as Clinton believes they were), then Gore should have won both the popular vote (much more convincingly) and the majority of electoral votes representing the majority of regions in the U.S.

Since Gore now blames Clinton for something -- his election loss -- does this now mean that Gore is a "Clinton hater"? A "Clinton basher" of the kind used to characterize conservative critics -- who have spent years criticizing Clinton for some of the same reasons cited by Gore?

This new division highlights the hypocrisy of the Democratic establishment; as long as things "go their way," Clinton and Gore were "united." But the second their political fortunes slipped, they turned on each other like dogs fighting for the last scrap of political gruel.

My, how "compassionate."

Oh, the irony is sweet, now that these strange bedfellows seem to have parted ways. Still, this parting lends mighty credence to the old adage that "opposites attract," wouldn't you agree?