And now the most telling two minutes in television, the latest from the wartime grapevine:

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A Change of Mind
In his speech in San Francisco yesterday, former Vice President Gore said the first President Bush had ended the 1991 Gulf War too soon.

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AL GORE, FMR. VICE PRESIDENT: Back in 1991, I was one of a handful of Democrats in the United States Senate to vote in favor of the resolution endorsing the Persian Gulf War. And I felt betrayed by the first Bush administration's hasty departure from the battlefield.

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But this is what Gore said about that back in 1991 on the floor of the Senate, of which he was then a member: “I want to state this clearly, President Bush should not be blamed for Saddam Hussein's survival to this point. There was throughout the war a clear consensus that the United States should not include the conquest of Iraq among its objectives. On the contrary, it was universally accepted that our objective was to push Iraq out of Kuwait, and it was further understood that when this was accomplished, combat should stop."

Apologizing for Character Cracks
The producers of the hit comedy movie Barbershop have apologized for the irreverent cracks a character in the film makes about the civil rights icons Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. This came after the Rev. Jesse Jackson said he spoke to the King and Parks families and found them "highly insulted" by the references. Jackson, meanwhile, has said of the Iraqi casualties that might occur in an attack aimed at Saddam Hussein, "It's reminiscent of Biblical times. Killing all those children to get to Jesus." That remark came in an interview on Black Entertainment Television.

Campaign Admits to Press Leak
Out in Iowa, Senator Tom Harkin's campaign has admitted, after first denying it, that it did obtain and leak to the press a transcript of a surreptitious, and possibly illegal tape, of a strategy session involving Harkin's opponent this fall, Republican Congressman Greg Ganske. Harkin campaign manager Jeff Link said the campaign was not involved in taping the meeting earlier this month at a hotel in Des Moines. But he conceded that the Harkin campaign later got a transcript and gave it to a reporter for the Des Moines Register. Link said he apologized and took responsibility.