WASHINGTON -- Maybe Al Gore has been standing too close for too long to admitted "misleader" Bill Clinton.
Two weeks ago, Gore claimed he invented the Internet. Most people, of course, give Defense Department scientists credit for that with programs dating back to 1969 (when Gore was 21).Then last week, Gore -- no doubt hoping to impress farmers -- told Iowa reporters how as a youth he plowed steep hills with mules, cleared land by hand with an ax, washed out hog waste and worked all day in the hot sun.
Critics said he must have a hard time finding time for all that between studying at the exclusive St. Alban's school and living with his wealthy family and father who was a U.S. senator.
And last year, Gore said main characters in the novel "Love Story" were based on him and his wife. The author, Erich Segal, said that "befuddled" him, and it was flatly wrong.
All of that may start heating up the glue gun to stick Gore with the one legacy he does not want carried over from the Clinton administration as he begins his own presidential campaign: the tag of lying, misleading or mangling the truth.
Gore should know he's in danger when the main person defending his claims last week was Clinton.
Yes, that is the same Bill Clinton from Hope, Ark., who admitted misleading the nation about an affair with an intern, was impeached for it and has been accused of other affairs (or rape or harassment) by Juanita Broaddrick, Gen-nifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, Elizabeth Ward Gracen and maybe Jane Does 1, 2, 3, and 4.
Clinton at a press conference gave this endorsement of Gore: "He came a lot closer to inventing the Internet than I did."
He added, "You remember he was talking about the Information Superhighway 20 years ago, and he did have a lot to do with supporting the development of it."
But pushing funding for it in Congress is much different than inventing it.
About the farming claims, Clinton said, "Well, he went to St. Alban's and his daddy was a senator. But it's also true that he is from East Tennessee, and he did learn to do all those things on the farm."
With such learning, Gore boasted to tobacco farmers in 1988 -- four years after smoking killed his sister with cancer -- that he was one of them. "I've hoed it. I've dug in it. I've sprayed it. I've chopped it. I've shredded it . . . and sold it," he said.
He didn't mention that at the 1996 Democratic National Convention when he emotionally talked about his sister and how he had dedicated his life to fighting tobacco after she died.
Worth noting is that Clinton also said last week with a straight face, "The vice president is, by nature, a reticent person, when it comes to talking about his life and his background." Like about inventing the Internet, for example.
Clinton also likely didn't help Gore much at the press conference when he gave the following prediction about how people will judge Clinton himself after his "misleading" the nation about his affair with Monica Lewinsky:
"I also think that there will be a box score, and there will be that one negative, and then there will be the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times when the record will show that I did not abuse my authority as president, that I was truthful with the American people," he said.
It conjures up images of a murderer telling a parole board, "There is that one negative about the guy I shot. But, hey, I met hundreds and hundreds of people I never killed. So I am way ahead on the box score, and you should release me."
Of course, political opponents have attacked Gore's gaffes. A favorite was from former Vice President Dan Quayle -- who himself was pummeled for the minor gaffe of misspelling "potato."
"If Al Gore invented the Internet, I invented the spell-checker," he said.
So here's some advice to Gore: If you want to avoid being tagged a liar forever more, tell the truth. Don't bend it. And keep plenty of distance from Clinton. Don't let him defend you. His defense sounds suspiciously like a lie, even if it isn't.
Deseret News Washington correspondent Lee Davidson can be reached by e-mail at leed@dgs.dgsys.com