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Overruled
The defense scrambles as the judge in the Matthew Shepard trial attacks the so-called "gay panic" defense.
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Beyond the superficiality of Bradley's philosopher-on-a-mountaintop somnambulism and Gore's more than occasionally cloying exuberance, however, witnesses to the WMUR-TV/CNN 60-minute exchange saw two widely divergent politicians and campaigns.

To Gore's chagrin, the format of the town meeting seemed to be designed to avoid pitting one candidate against the other. Members of the audience, chosen by lottery from the Upper Valley region, asked one question to one candidate, and that candidate was given 90 seconds to respond. There were no follow-ups, introductory or closing remarks, and no direct confrontations.

Nonetheless, Gore continued to step up his attacks on Bradley -- who matches him in cash-on-hand, and leads the vice president in the state, 47-39 percent, according to a Quinnipiac College poll released Tuesday. Gore hammered home his differences with the stunningly strong insurgent on school vouchers, health care and U.S. intervention abroad. Bradley, meanwhile, continued to brush off Gore's charges like so much dandruff.

The last time Bill Bradley came up to Dartmouth College for a major competition, he only had a so-so night. On Feb. 19, 1965, the Princeton Tigers handed the Dartmouth Indians their shorts, 83-57, but Bradley -- for whom expectations were and will always be superhumanly high -- only managed to score 19 points. (In his previous trip to Dartmouth, on Feb. 8, 1964, he scored 31 points and was the only Tiger to hit double figures.)

Wednesday night's was another decent if unspectacular performance. One of the few solid, substantive punches that landed occurred when Gore pointed out that Emory University Medical School just assessed that Bradley's health-care proposal would cost $1.2 trillion over a decade -- as opposed to the $650 billion price tag Bradley had assigned it.

"That's more than entire budget surplus," Gore said. "We need to save some of the surplus to save Medicaid. The cost is way excessive." The next time Gore was asked a question -- on violence in schools -- he took a few seconds to continue bleeding Bradley's plan. "The numbers have to add up," he said, noting that "one of the reasons why we have a strong economy" is because of diligent planning. Bradley's proposal, he said, is "something that oughta be looked at very carefully."

To that, Bradley just said: "We each have our own experts. I dispute the cost figure that Al has used." And when handed a question about the still-oozing campaign-finance scandals of the Clinton-Gore '96 campaign, he refrained from attacking, noting that there were "irregularities that have been addressed," though he wasn't "going to get into the details."

Gore wasn't so easy on President Clinton. Questioned about the climate of cynicism created not only by the behavior of the GOP-led Congress, but also "the behavior of some members of your administration," Gore leaped forward and said, "I understand the disappointment and anger you feel about President Clinton; I felt it myself." But Clinton's name hadn't been mentioned, and the questioner could have been referring to any number of tarnished, indicted or imprisoned members of the administration the president pledged would be the most ethical in history.

Adding that Clinton is his "friend," and that he feels "it's time to move on," Gore also suggested that he was a vociferous Clinton defender during Zippergate because he "took an oath to serve this country through thick and thin."

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