Neomeme did a little digging after we all learned that Karl Rove had been using a Republican National Committee email account to conduct quasi-government/quasi-political work from the West Wing. The account Mr. Rove was using was on a little RNC-owned domain called gwb43.com (Pres. Bush being the 43rd president, “43″ is also his family nickname with his father being called “41″ — cute, no?).

In doing the digging, Neoneme found what he calls several “Strange Domains Registered by the RNC“. One of the more curious domains discovered is one called “democratflipflops.com”. As we all know, in 2004 the Republicans’ knock against Senator John Kerry was that he somehow flip-flopped on legislation and policies. Kerry-Edwards events often had goofball protesters running in giant flip & flop costumes, though even Sen. Kerry shot himself in the foot by saying he voted for the Iraq war before he voted against it (which, in Senatorese, is technically true since there were several bills related to the Iraq War, some worse than others).

But Neoneme explains why that particular domain name is so interesting in light of the 2004 presidential campaign:

democratflipflops.com is particularly interesting, because it was registered in 2002, suggesting the Republican war machine for labeling Bush’s 2004 opponent a flip-flopper was working long before the election.

This makes sense: write the script long before you need to act out the play. Had the primaries produced a candidate by the name of Howard Dean or John Edwards … why they too would’ve had the “flip-flopper” label thrown at them.

Karl Rove has a history of plugging pieces into a puzzle whether they fit or not. We saw him do it time and again to Vice-President Gore in 2000, labeling him a fibber (at worst) or exaggerator (at best). One of the most famous 2000 lines is that VP Gore claimed to have “invented” the Internet. He, of course, never made such a claim. It was then-candidate Bush who twisted Gore’s words … in order to fit the script that had already been written.

Unfortunately, it’s apparently easier for the national media to buy into a storyline — even a made-up political storyline — than it is for those journalists to actually, you know, do journalism. Even worse… some folks sadly lap it up like cats to milk.