Steve Re: A moment of non-silence in recognition of the E. F. Hutton comment.

Lance: I never cease to be amazed at people's hypersensitivity and responses to seemingly innocuous or humorous statements.

While living in Georgia, I befriended many of varying ilks. After publication of your 'Kerry is such a goober' comment, I have been deluged with irate rantings from several Georgians and South Carolinians from my past. One Gullah-speaking acquaintance, from whence originated the word 'goober', told me, "Uma chil' nyamnyam fufu an t'ree roll-roun', but 'e ain't been satisfy!" (The girl ate mush and three bisquits [heard Kerry and Edwards], but she wasn't satisfied!)

The Georgia Peanut Lobby was the most vociferous, however, but they were not unified. (Some smooth, some chunky.) Most were offended that the noble peanut was associated with Kerry, but the Jimmy Carter wing of the lobbying group thought that your very comment was the reason that Kerry/Edwards would win. A radical group, calling themselves 'Carverites', claimed that Kerry's flip-flopping equated him well with the versatile Arachis hypogaea.

Billy Carter could not be sobered up enough for an intelligible comment.