THERE'S SOMETHING CREEPY ABOUT GORE'S LIES, SIGHS, MAKE-UP

This Al Gore, he's an interesting study, isn't he? I mean, it isn't just the off-putting demand to have the last word every single time.

It isn't just the posture of the-smartest-kid-in-the-fifth-grade-with-his-hand-up-to-answer-teacher's-every-question, or his now-proven instances of repeated fudging of the facts, or outright lying. It isn't just the repeated, exaggerated instances of audible sighing, the rolling of the eyes and the visible expressions of disgust as his opponent is speaking. It isn't just the outright haughtiness, bordering on contempt for his opposition and any who might deign to question him.

There's just something creepy about this guy, don't you think? What is this compulsion to tell lies -- whoppers, really -- about easily checkable facts, where the truth can catch up with him within minutes, this compulsion even to lie about trivia when the truth would do just fine? By the way, as for the veep's repeated, exaggerated sighing, check The Wall Street Journal's invaluable, brand-new, free on-line opinion site, OpinionJournal.com. There you will find columnist John Fund conclusively demonstrating that this tactic, far from being a one-time thing, goes back years in Gore debate appearances, that it was repeatedly deployed this past winter against former Sen. Bill Bradley to the great consternation of Gore's Democratic primary challenger.

(And again, by the way, who's the vice presidential make-up artist? Here is New York Times ace columnist Maureen Dowd describing Gore's weirdly, heavily rouge-ish debate appearance, so grotesquely made up, as looking "like a big, orange, waxy, wickless candle.")

It wasn't all bad news for Gore. His wordy performance too often dominated and outpointed the more tentative and less articulate Texas governor. Our friend Mr. Bush, for all his sincerity, sound policies and earnestness, demonstrates once again the truth of columnist George Will's telling observation 25 years ago in another presidential contest. Writing on the challenge of Ronald Reagan to a sitting, unelected President Gerald Ford, Will skewered Ford's deficiency by observing that "rhetorical skills aren't peripheral to the presidency; they are at the core of what the modern presidency is about in the Media Age." A candidate deficient in communication skills is at a severe disadvantage, and had he possessed them in more abundance, Bush would have seized many more opportunities to wipe up the floor with the untruthful veep.

He can start by pressing the issue clearly most threatening to the Clinton-Gore side: The squalid ethical mess of the last eight years of "no-controlling-legal-authority," of Buddhist temple fund raisers and the lies told about them, of Chinese arms dealers welcomed into the Oval Office with $50,000 cash spilling out of their suit pockets.

All of which he can do, beginning this week, around Larry King's informal table, in a forum more congenial to the neighborly Midland, Texas, native.

~Peter Kinder is assistant to the president of Rust Communications and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.