LIES AND DAMN LIES

What's a political campaign without politicians calling each other liars? This one's been marked, however, at the presidential level, by strategic civility, a pious avoidance of "personal attacks." Nevertheless, the GOP's most effective line of attack on Gore has been impugning his personal credibility by blowing up his gaffes and recycling hoary myths. You know them: that Gore claimed he invented the Internet (he didn't but gave it early legislative support), that he exaggerates when he says he did chores on his father's farm (his father made him work his butt off), that he claimed to be a model for a character in Love Story (he never claimed it, and Erich Segal, the author, said the character was partly modeled on him), that he claimed to have discovered the Love Canal pollution (no, but he held hearings on it and other toxic dumpsites). These radioactive lies about lies have had a long half-life and enabled George W. to sow further innuendo in the debates by harping on Gore's "stretchers" and "fuzzy math"--even as he blithely spreads misinformation of his own (check out the article by Professor George Gerbner--ggerbner@nimbus.temple.edu).

BUSH'S LATE SHOW CONFESSION

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