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Crawford, a Texan, says he doesn’t think the governor of his home state is dyslexic. “How then, would you explain a history of American politicians saying one dumb thing after another?”

Rather, it’s just a case of like father, like son. “I think he just inherited an inability to talk from his dad, who had his share of doozies,” Crawford says.

Former Texas Gov. Ann Richards once described the elder George Bush as having been “born with a silver foot in his mouth.”

When Bush pere assumed leadership of the Republican Party, he reflected on his tenure as Ronald Reagan’s vice president, saying, “We have had triumphs, we have made mistakes, we have had sex.” Bush meant to say, “setbacks.”

Gore misspeaks on occasion, too. After the Chicago Bulls won their sixth NBA championship in 1998, the vice president gushed, “I tell you that Michael Jackson is unbelievable, isn’t he? He’s just unbelievable.” I suppose Michael Jordan also played well.

On the campaign trail in 1996, Gore visited a school in a largely Hispanic section of Albuquerque, N.M., and tried to use a little Spanish. He tried to say “muchas gracias,” (“many thanks”). Instead he waved and told the crowd, “machismo gracias” (“manliness thanks”).

Recently, Gore told an audience, “My mother always made it clear to my sister and me that women and men were equal — if not more so.”

But Crawford says Gore’s real clown potential lies in his propensity for overstatements. “He’ll always be remembered as the guy who said he invented the Internet,” Crawford says. “It falls into a pattern that people associate with him, and now it’s a familiar gag.”

At points, Gore has said he was the inspiration for the best seller Love Story. Though he met the author, Erich Segal, at Harvard, that claim was a “miscommunication,” a spokeswoman says.