Al Gore has a beard. He's fat.

It's still a couple years out until the '08 election, but the "Al Gore is unelectable" trope has begun already.

Mr. Gore — the former vice president, would-be president, almost-president and, in some circles, should-be president — did a hilarious turn on "Saturday Night Live" last weekend. He has received continued plaudits in liberal journals and blogs for his staunch opposition to the Iraq war and good reviews for his documentary about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth." He attended an opening for the film here last Wednesday amid raves about how at ease this latest version of the "new Al Gore" appears, in addition to the requisite "Gore in '08" buzzing among the Washington smartypants set.

If Mr. Gore runs for president again — and he says he won't, though not quite definitively — he would come rested, battle-tested and, given how Democrats have treated their losing nominees, deeply stigmatized.

As a general rule, it can be an unpleasant career move for a Democrat to run for president, streak to primary victories, win his party's nomination and, ultimately, fall short. For his troubles, he will automatically be consigned by large sectors of his party to a distinctive Democratic pariah status — his campaign ridiculed, second-guessed and I-told-you-so'd endlessly by insiders and operatives who bemoan how "winnable" his election was and "unlikable" his personality is.

They will reflexively lump the runner-up into the party pantheon of losers and hope he stays away. "We tend to treat our losing nominees like Superfund sites," said Bob Beckel, a longtime Democratic strategist who ran Walter F. Mondale's presidential campaign in 1984, a landslide loss to Ronald Reagan.

Oh, bullshit.

Josh Marshall and Kevin Drum call it so.

UPDATE: As "Anon" points out, it's Matthew Yglesias subbing for Josh.