And Democrat Al Gore, who usually drops the names and titles of foreign leaders with assurance, goofed Wednesday night when sizing up the situation in the Balkans.

Gore referred to attempts by supporters of ousted Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to "ignore the orders of the new president of Serbia." He actually was referring to Vojislav Kostunica, the Yugoslav president. Serbia is the largest republic of Yugoslavia.

Bush veered off course on foreign policy too, identifying Haiti as a place where he would withdraw U.S. troops as president. Actually, the Clinton administration, acting under pressure from Congress, brought nearly all U.S. troops home from Haiti earlier this year.

Gore picked up on this when his turn came, noting, there was "only a handful" of U.S. forces left in Haiti.

Gore fudged his education plan -- a subject he called his top priority. "I think that we should require states to test all students," he said.

But Gore's plan does not propose mandatory testing of all students each year. His education plan specifies that he wants voluntary national tests in two grades and that he would encourage high school exit exams.

His plan would require all states to give a national exam -- or a state equivalent -- that tests only a small sampling of students in each state.

Already, most states participate in that test, called the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Addressing hate crimes, Bush wrongly stated during the debate that "the three men who murdered James Byrd ... are going to be put to death."

Byrd was a 49-year-old black man and father of three who was chained to the back of a pickup truck by three white men two years ago and dragged three miles to his death in east Texas.

Only two of the defendants were sentenced to death; a third was sentenced to life in prison.

"The problem that Bush had in the debate is that Gore attacked the Texas record and Bush may not have rebutted those attacks as effectively as he needed," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the Annenburg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

For instance, Gore said that Houston had the nation's worst air pollution.

According to the EPA, Houston does have the worst ozone pollution, but Jamieson said Los Angeles fare worse on two other forms of air pollution -- carbon monoxide and particulate matters, like dust and soot.

On other matters, Gore touted his support of former President Bush during the Gulf War, noting correctly he was one of a few Democrats to do so.

But he did not mention that during the 1992 campaign, he assailed the former president for his prewar policy with Iraq and declared the Gulf War "never should have taken place."

Gore also noted that "for whatever reason" the war ended with Saddam Hussein left in power. But during the war, then-Sen. Gore said that installing new leaders in Iraq would require the "conquest and occupation of Iraq" and that should not be a U.S. goal.

On gun control, Bush voiced his support for instant background checks by saying guns should not be sold to those who ought not to have them.

He didn't mention that Texas failed to perform full background checks on 407 people who had prior criminal convictions but were granted concealed handgun licenses under a law he signed in 1995.

Bush also said the number of Texans without health insurance had declined while the number in the United States had risen.

A new Census Bureau report says the number of uninsured Americans declined last year for the first time since statistics were kept in 1987. About 42.5 million people, or 15.5 percent of the population, lacked insurance in 1999, compared with 44.2 million, or 16.3 percent, in 1998, the agency reported.

Texas ranked next to last in the nation last year with 23.3 percent of its residents uninsured. But that was improvement from 1998 when it ranked 50th at 24.5 percent.