As a reporter, you never know how the world is going to receive what you’ve written. You just hope your work gets read. But every once in a while, your work is taken so far out of context that it almost gives you empathy for the politicians who consistently accuse the press of misquoting them. Such was the case with my story "Primary School" (News and Features, February 7), about the upcoming New Hampshire presidential primary, published in the Phoenix last week.

In it, I recounted an anecdote about the political strategies of 2000 New Hampshire Democratic primary contenders former vice-president Al Gore and former US senator Bill Bradley. Here’s what I wrote: "Knowing that Bradley’s strength came from tony tech havens such as Bedford, the Gore team organized a caravan to clog highway I-93 with traffic so as to discourage potential Bradley voters from getting to the polls. (Michael Whouley, a chief Gore strategist, recounted the Gore team’s Election Day field efforts at a Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics symposium, and his comments are included in a new book compiled by the Institute titled Campaign for President: The Managers Look at 2000. He knocked down the rumor that they considered overturning an 18-wheeler to clog up traffic.")

The day the story came out, both the Hotline, an online political journal for insiders, and ABCNews.com’s "Note," a daily guide to political stories and events, pointed readers to my piece. Apparently, politicos and news junkies took the suggestions. The next day, the New York Sun ran an editorial titled LIBERAL HYPOCRISY, comparing the Gore campaign’s move to allegations that the Florida state GOP had erected "police roadblocks meant to intimidate black voters." The Manchester Union Leader published a story headlined GORE AIDE’S TRAFFIC JAM STORY DRAWS CRITICISM. (The story erroneously reported that my story claims that Whouley spoke about the caravan traffic jam at the Kennedy School. He didn’t, nor did I ever say that he did. He merely joked about overturning an 18-wheeler.) By then, the story had jumped to number two on the Hotline. Meaning that my anecdote about the Gore campaign was one of the hottest political stories of the day. And it popped back up on ABCNews.com. Meanwhile, adding fuel to the campaign-strategizing-story fire was the coincidental disclosure on Friday that the Manchester, New Hampshire, police were investigating the Republican State Committee for using a Republican telemarketing group to block Democratic phone banks during the November 2002 statewide election. Later that Friday, Republican State Committee executive director Chuck McGee resigned.

As I digested all this, my phone rang. It was Michael Whouley. Not surprisingly, he was angry. He wanted an on-the-record denial of the caravan-traffic-jam story from him published in the Phoenix. And he wanted to emphasize that he had never talked about organizing a caravan to create a traffic jam during his Kennedy School talk and that his mention of "overturning an 18-wheeler" was a joke. Here’s the word-for-word transcript of what Whouley said at the Kennedy School: "There was actually a rumor that we would try to turn over an 18-wheel truck on I-93 so the liberal-minded, independent voters in New Hampshire who worked the 128 corridor wouldn’t be able to get back to vote [laughter]. If we could guarantee that no one would have been hurt, that would have happened [laughter]." (Whouley, a founder of the influential Dewey Square Group public-affairs-consulting firm, is an extremely busy man. Which is probably why he never answered any of the numerous calls for comment I made to both his office phone and cell phone while reporting the story. Of course, if he had called me back, his on-the-record denial and emphasis on the humorous nature of the 18-wheeler comment would have appeared in the article.)

On Saturday, the Union Leader published a story reporting Whouley’s denials that such an incident ever took place, leaving me to wonder if this story was ever going to die, thus allowing everyone involved to move on to other things. Such as war with Iraq. Alas, for me, it wasn’t quite finished. On Tuesday, the Union Leader ran yet another article on the matter titled PHOENIX REPORTER STANDS BY THE TRAFFIC JAM STORY.

Forgive me if I feel the need to defend myself. But I do. My original reporting of the caravan-traffic-jam story was based on what I heard from two campaign operatives who worked on Gore’s 2000 primary effort in New Hampshire. They told me the story on background. A third source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told me that there had been a traffic jam on Interstate 93 on primary Election Day, and that it had been caused by the Gore campaign. Lastly, Whouley himself does not deny that the Gore campaign had created a traffic jam that day.

"We sent Gore out campaigning," he told me in another conversation Monday, adding that "there was no voter suppression." Of course, sending a sitting vice-president "out campaigning" is no routine task. For one thing, under the strictures of Secret Service protection, a sitting vice-president must travel in what is, in effect, a caravan. "He may have caused a traffic jam," Whouley allows. But he adds: "He had every right to campaign for every last vote."

It’s been interesting to watch conservatives equate Gore’s traffic jam — which was by no means illegal and falls well within the parameters of creative campaigning — with Republican-style Election Day shenanigans, such as the disclosure that GOP operatives had blocked Democratic phone banks during the November 2002 statewide election — which is illegal — and the obstacles Florida Republicans mounted to prevent African-Americans from voting in 2000 — which were illegal. Nevertheless, I’m ready to leave the caravan story behind. On Tuesday, news broke that Senator John Kerry was scheduled to undergo prostate surgery on Wednesday. With any luck, the news media will move on to matters like that, and take the traffic-jam story with them.