Okay. So much for my self restraint.

I heard law professor and attorney Alan Dershowitz discussing a case (and this was pre-O.J.) in which he talked about something or other ``passing the giggle test.'' That's a test where the subject has to be able to say whatever it is with a straight face. I've always remembered that.

I've come to the conclusion these days, however, that the giggle test is no longer valid. Not with the way our leaders can stand in front of television cameras and say the things they do.

Saying things you don't mean isn't new. That's how you end up with Trent Lott telling BET that he has always supported Affirmative Action. That's how you have Bill Clinton saying that he did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.

But what does it mean when people sell out the very things they cherish most as personal beliefs?

How else do you explain the painful-to-watch exhibition of Condoleeza Rice endorsing the Bush Administration's plan to back a legal assault on affirmative action.

Rice claimed that she argued FOR the administration's take on a University of Michigan case on the grounds that it is a `quota' system.

Taking consideration the fact that Rice points with a great deal of pride to her efforts while a Provost at Stanford University to attract more black faculty members, which was done without any quota or percentage goal.

Rice said she was not opposed to considering race with respect to admissions. Just not when it's tied to a quota.

The problem is, the University of Michigan program ISN'T a quota system.

You see, `Quota' is the latest Republican buzzword. Their polling data tells them that people who support Affirmative Action, swap sides when they use the term `racial quotas.' Their tactics invariably boil down to this: If you oppose something, hang a label on it and attack the label. Whether or not the label applies.

So we have this admission program now being painted as a quota system. Falsely.

This from the New York Times: ``But "quota" has a specific meaning, and the University of Michigan's admissions policies do not meet it. In University of California Regents v. Bakke, the landmark 1978 case that upheld affirmative action while striking down quotas, the Supreme Court invalidated a medical school admissions system that set aside 16 "special admissions" places in the class, which invariably went to minorities. At Michigan, in both undergraduate and law school admissions, all applicants apply for all positions in the class. The university gives applicants extra points for belonging to an underrepresented racial or ethnic minority. But it also gives diversity points to applicants who come from an underrepresented part of the state, like Michigan's largely white Upper Peninsula, scholarship athletes, and men in the nursing program.

``The administration has suggested that the University of Michigan's program is unusually flawed. In fact, most highly selective educational institutions rely on similar admissions criteria. If the Supreme Court holds Michigan's procedures to be unconstitutional, it will force an overhaul in admissions policies nationwide.''

The argument the administration is using in this case, as spelled out in legal briefs prepared by the Solicitor General, press that case that any kind of affirmative action program with respect to race is unconstitutional.

Of course, we won't mention how the pResident got into Yale – being the son of a powerful alumnus and all.

More soon.