I sometimes hop over to the Kerry blog comment threads to check out how things are in elitist-bitter-ender land. No matter how bad the Kerry news is, they can always come up with some jaw-dropping spin on how it's all good, and any day now everyone will just see how NO Democrats are worthy to be President other than John Kerry, and how it's BETTER to have fallen behind because he's obviously just going to impress everyone by catching up, starting TODAY, and on and on, huzzah!

(I've never commented there other than an initial 'Hello & welcome to blogland' when their blog came online, for which I was lumped in with the people who were 'trying to kill our blog' (?!?!). They react very badly to 'outsiders', and besides, Trippi recommended that Dean supporters just stay out of their conversations, so I have ever since.)

Expecting a masterfully odd response to the news of Gore's upcoming endorsement of Dean, I poked my head in and wasn't disappointed.

First of all, Gore's endorsement means that he's (deliberately, perhaps) handing the election to Bush. Because, you know, picking the guy who came from Nowhere, VT to lead the pack and outraise everyone is a sure invitation to electoral disaster when you could instead hand the nomination to the guy who started out at the top and has steadily drifted down, down, down, raising less and less money as he goes. Down is up!

And second, while many have complaints about Gore's endorsement itself, the real thorn in their sides is that he didn't send Kerry or Lieberman a heads-up first. Gore was just so rude!

Gee, let's see: Lieberman and Gore parted company many months ago; Gore's first MoveOn speech directly attacked the Iraq war rationales, and his subsequent speech sounded a lot like Dean talking points to me. I think Joe could probably read the writing on that wall just fine ("It won't be you, Joe"), and they haven't converged since then.

As for Kerry, he's already given several kissoffs to Gore in his campaign, so surely he couldn't have been expecting it. Just a couple of examples: he's made fun of Gore's invention of the Internet (which is straight out of the Rove lexicon, and something you'd think a clueful Democrat would avoid perpetuating) and he tells Democrats they should just Get Over the 2000 election. (No.)

For Kerry to be expecting a Gore endorsement would be mighty self-delusional... but then again I suppose I shouldn't assume Kerry is any good at perceiving where he actually stands, since he still hasn't [officially] dropped out of the race. Probably he would have benefited from (and been surprised by) a tap on the shoulder previewing the not-Kerry endorsement.

But the prime reason Gore wouldn't have told the other campaigns is embarassingly obvious: the non-endorsed campaigns would have leaked it, taking away from the timing and impact of the announcement the day before the big NH debate. Duh!

And for having a brain and a sense of political timing, Gore will now forever be known to the vast seas of Kerry and Lieberman supporters as 'rude'.

Oh, I hope he can live with himself.