"Tim J." wrote in message
That seems to be what it's all about for both sides on the extremes. There
is no thought given as to the intent of the message, but just the exact
words - and parsing them endlessly. Not that this would ever happen on
ROFF. ;-)

No, never on ROFF. g But yeah, I agree with that as an assessment of the
spin machines of both the right & left. Sometimes, one unguarded slip of
the tongue is a view into hidden, personal, and ugly attitudes (e.g. Allen's
"macaca" gaffe); and sometimes its just a benign and poorly worded
off-the-cuff statement of an actual truth.

In the present discussion, the facts are clear (IMHO) that Gore's statement
was both reasonable and misquoted. Anybody with a search engine could
easily verify that; but we search for and find what we want to see, not for
facts that disagree with staunchly held opinions. And though I'm citing the
present discussion, I do not excuse myself or anybody else from that
accusation.

Joe F.