VOLuntarilyConservative

The most difficult course that I took during my undergraduate education was Physical Chemistry under Dr. Thomas Huang. Physical Chemistry (or P-Chem, as it is routinely called) is the course chemistry majors take after two semesters of Organic Chemistry, and it is extremely math-oriented.

But that was a long time ago, and my math skills were better. Attorneys are known to be poor at math, and maybe it is that affliction which is making my understanding of this U.S. Senate race perplexing. Have I lost the math skills from my youth?

Someone work through this with me...

Bob Corker said in the Memphis debate that he had been pro-life for "7 or 8 years now."

It's 2006. That would mean that he had been pro-life, according to Bob, since 1998 or 1999.

Huh.

But I have heard at least 1, 327 times - in every opening statement, Lincoln Day speech, TV ad, and picnic address - how Bob came to be pro-life after his mission trip to Haiti.

That trip was in 1982. Even Bob's website says that it was "over 20 years ago." Seems to me that it was 24 years ago, but my math may be off there.

In 1994, Bob Corker was on record as saying that abortion wasn't a process that should be regulated by the government. (That's a pro-choice statement, right out of the Planned Parenthood press releases.)

1999 or 1999.

1982.

1994.

Is it me, or do these numbers just not add up?

It could be just me, since - no matter how I manipulated the numbers - I couldn't make Van Hilleary's figures on his tainted Jack Abramoff money add up, either. But, then again, no one from Van's campaign has been able to explain that one to me, so maybe that figure isn't accurate.

So maybe it's not me. Maybe, when it comes to Bob Corker and Van Hilleary, the numbers just don't add up.