The Al Gore quiz

2. Speaking of "Look for the Union Label," Al Gore says he recalls his mother singing him to sleep with that song, though it was not written until Gore was 27. Explain.

3. Gore said that in Vietnam "I carried an M-16 ... I pulled my turn on the perimeter at night and walked through the elephant grass, and I was fired on," and "I was shot at ... I spent most of my time in the field."

Gore served five months in Vietnam as a visiting military journalist, earning special protection as the son of a famous senator. He pulled occasional guard duty at a secure base. His best Army buddy said this was "the equivalent of being a school-crossing guard." Nobody seems to remember Gore being fired on. What can we conclude from this?

4. Al Gore gave Hollywood's moguls six months to stop marketing violent junk to kids, or else. This indicates:

5. Gore said his mother-in-law pays nearly three times as much for the same arthritis medicine as he does for his ailing dog, Shiloh. But his staff could not confirm the tale. What's the story here?

6. In 1999, Gore said he had co-sponsored the McCain-Feingold bill to reform campaign financing. Yet Gore left Congress before Russell Feingold ever arrived. Explain.

7. Gore says he was "always, always, always" a backer of abortion and Roe vs. Wade. Yet 11 years after the Roe decision, he wrote to an anti-abortion constituent: "I share your belief that innocent human life must be protected, and I have an open mind on how to further this goal." Isn't there a contradiction here?

8. Campaigning in Iowa, Gore depicted himself as Farmer Al. "I lived on a farm," he said. "(My father) taught me how to clean out hog waste ... He taught me how to clear land with a double-bladed ax ... He taught me how to take up hay all day long in the hot sun and then, after a dinner break, go over and help the neighbors take up hay before the rain came and spoiled it on the ground." Didn't Gore grow up in Washington, living in the Fairfax Hotel and going to a fancy private school, then Harvard? Explain.