People unclear on the whole concept

Those of you with long enough memories may recall the incident above, in which Al Gore tried to intimidate George W. Bush during one of the 2000 debates by walking up behind him and glowering as Bush was talking.

Bush effectively won the debate- and the presidency- by springing a trap: that dismissive little "Oh. Hi there!" nod made Gore look like a pompous bully, and Bush like the very kind of cool, unflappable type one would want to be the one with his finger on the button. The moment made Bush seem as good-natured as Gore seemed humorless, and as self-possessed as Gore was perpetually on the verge of apoplexy.

Even Gore had the grace to laugh at himself.

I raise the issue because the YouTube video above was linked to by liberal columnist Jeff Greenfield in a Slate article making the very point that it's what Barak Obama (the relaxed analog of 2000's George W. Bush) is essentially doing to earnest, overwrought Hillary Clinton in this year's Democratic race. But when I saw the title of the video at YouTube, and the log-in of the person who put it up, and the remarks the commenters made... well, it was the best laugh I'd had all day.

It says a great deal about the degree to which the Democrats are still in denial about that campaign (as about so much else!) that the person who put this video up on YouTube- his nickname is "bushthebigidiot-" missed the whole point, and titled it "Al Gore Punks George W. Bush!" And the typical over-the-top, ad hominem rhetoric of the commenters- all of whom seem also to have missed the whole point of the incident- is both as hilarious and as pathetic as their whining has usually been lo these past eight years.

But then, these are the same folks who are so bitter about their guys getting caught trying to steal Florida and the presidency later that year that they're still projecting that act incongruously onto Bush- the guy who would have benefitted from those thousands of perfectly legal military ballots the Democrats refused to count, thus making it close enough that a Democratic effort to steal the state by manually manipulating the punch cards was feasible.

I think Greenfield has a point. Perhaps Obama's relaxed optimism- his ability, in Greenfield's terms, to play Bugs Bunny to John McCain's Daffy Duck- is the greatest threat the Good Guys are going to face this November. One thing's for sure: McCain is going to have to make a studied effort not to come off like Al Gore. And that's a real danger when a candidate is convinced- as Gore was convinced- that he knows a great deal more than the person he's running against.

And after all, McCain does know a great deal more about how to be president than does Obama.