Al Gore is guilty of a new form of McCarthyism - Charlie McCarthyism.
Unlike the red-baiting Wisconsinite of the early 1950s, Gore has his spokesman speak the naughty words. Confronted by reporters, he acts as if the aide were speaking for himself.
The ploy is reminiscent of the late, great ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, whose dummy Charlie McCarthy would make all the wildly mischievous wisecracks while Bergen himself took on a stunned look of innocence.
The running gag was that the distinguished Bergen would never say such awful words. Only a dummy like Charlie McCarthy would say such terrible things.
Charlie McCarthyism. That's the game Gore is playing, but with dead seriousness. Faced with high negatives in the polls, he cannot afford to be seen or heard bad-mouthing the other side. So he gets staffers like Chris Lehane to speak what he knows to be the unspeakable.
Lehane accuses Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania of "McCarthyite tactics" for calling Attorney General Janet Reno to testify why she has not honored her top investigator's call for an independent counsel to probe Gore's Buddhist temple fundraising.
Specter, who knows the poison loaded in the charge, writes the vice president demanding that the "McCarthyism" slur be retracted.
In response, spokesman Lehane continues to bludgeon Specter with the charge of McCarthyism. Mark Fabiani, Gore's communications director, tells reporters that the Pennsylvania senator "shouldn't expect an apology."
His official "spokesman" and "communications director" having spoken, Gore himself remains silent.
Having gotten no response to his first letter, Specter now writes the vice president a second letter. He notes that Gore is still using "surrogates" to make the "McCarthyism" charge.
"If you intend to continue your character assassination of me, I think you ought to be man enough to say it yourself."
Gore continued to play Edgar Bergen to his spokesman's Charlie McCarthy. "I think Chris does a great job. I'm going to let him speak for himself."
Anyone who knows Gore and watches his campaign knows the rich absurdity of that remark. Gore's staff people speak what Gore wants them to speak or they no longer remain Gore staff people. Senate surrogates are held to the same strict compliance by the daily "talking points."
When Gore wants something said that no senator would say about a colleague, it's the spokesman's job to say it.
Senator Specter promises to bring the "McCarthyism" charge up the next time the vice president comes up to the Senate to break a tie vote. He still hopes to hear Al Gore's words from Al Gore.
He'd have better luck waiting for the late Edgar Bergen to show up -- with or without Charlie McCarthy.
(Chris Matthews, chief of the San Francisco Examiner's Washington Bureau, is host of "Hardball" on CNBC and MSNBC cable channels. The 1999 edition of "Hardball" was published by Touchstone Books).