TRICKS OF THE TRADE! Josh and Rachel were all tricked out as they discussed Weiner's fall:

MONDAY, JUNE 20, 2011
Why we continue to type: Again, we’ll recommend the newly-completed chapter 5 of our ongoing book, How he got there. Just click here.

Tomorrow, we’ll start our second non-annual fund-raising drive. Today, we’ll briefly explain why we continue to type—more particularly, why we want to finish that book. (Most of the basic work is already done. Oh, but all the shaping!)

Why should the history of Campaign 2000 be told in something like full detail? Consider Adam Serwer’s short op-ed piece in yesterday’s Washington Post. The piece was drawn from this longer blog post—but the shortened version appeared right on the hard-copy op-ed page.

(To see the piece as it appeared in the hard-copy Post, click here—then click once again.)

On the one hand, Serwer’s piece has some merit, though not very much. On the other hand, the piece must have been puzzling to most readers of the Washington Post. As it appeared in hard-copy form, it started out like this:

SERWER (6/19/11): Does Tim Pawlenty have a “toughness problem”? Or do we have a media problem?

At last week’s Republican debate, CNN’s John King gave the former Minnesota governor an easy opening to repeat his “Obamneycare” dig at front-runner Mitt Romney directly. Pawlenty declined, leading to stories questioning whether Pawlenty is “tough enough” to be president.

Ever since Al Gore’s presidential run, the media have latched on to some perceived personality flaw in political candidates and shoehorned coverage into that frame. With Barack Obama, it’s that he’s too aloof. With Mitt Romney it’s that he’s insincere.

Serwer suggested we may have a “media problem” in the coverage of Pawlenty. That’s always possible, of course, although we think Serwer’s analysis is pretty silly. Pawlenty’s debate performance was notably weird. Journalists should have noticed.

That said, Serwer’s reference to the Gore campaign must have puzzled many Post readers. Has the Washington Post ever breathed a single word about the press corps’ war against Gore—the war to which Serwer refers in this passage? Just a guess: Due to twelve years of silence from career liberals and mainstream journalists, most Post readers had no idea what Serwer was talking about. Nor would they have understood this further allusion:

SERWER (continuing directly): Jonathan Chait wrote recently: “An Al Gore problem results in the media ganging up on a candidate like cool kids mocking a geek, with literally everything he’s doing serving as more evidence for the predetermined narrative.” The high school metaphor seems particularly apt when we’re questioning someone’s qualifications to be president based on his ability to level taunts at rivals.

Say what? Let’s say it again: The vast majority of Post readers have never heard that there was a problem with the press corps’ treatment of Candidate Gore. They will have little idea what Chait was talking about in that passage. These references come to them from inside a time capsule—a capsule which has been tightly shut over the past twelve years.

Sad, isn’t it? To see this topic enter the discourse because a career liberal like Serwer is shedding tears about the alleged mistreatment of poor Pawlenty! After he and his kind have spent twelve years deep-sixing the “media problem” unloosed against Candidate Gore! Pitiful children like Serwer and Chait are currently telling the truth very slowly. Just a guess: Most people reading yesterday’s Post didn’t have the slightest idea what they were talking about.

We want to leave the detailed history of Campaign 2000 behind us when we fly. We do so dreaming of a day when the liberal and progressive worlds are no longer in the hands of children like Serwer and Chait. The Irish saved civilization, we hear. Perhaps if we save the history of this campaign, future generations will know what to do with such actual knowledge.

More tomorrow, but here’s our question:

Did Post readers have any idea what Adam Serwer was talking about? We can’t imagine why they would have. But that is life inside a world in which career liberals have sold their souls, and shut their traps. for the chance to be media players. A world in which your big career liberals are telling the truth very slowly.