It got a little bit personal in the end to keep things lively.

Seeking an advantage in their nip-and-tuck race for president, the major party candidates painted different visions of the role of American military power overseas, with Gore defending humanitarian and nation-building missions and Bush warning that the U.S. forces are overextended. "I would be judicious about how we use our military," said the two-term Texas governor.

The policies of President Clinton and former President Bush loomed large over the second of three presidential debates. Gore suggested the United States could have saved lives if the Clinton administration had acted earlier in Rwanda and Bush chuckled slightly when asked to assess foreign interventions spearheaded by his father.

"Some of them I've got a conflict of interest on, if you know what I mean," he said with a smile.

The candidates agreed in many remarks on many matters, but clashed often on foreign policy, hate crime legislation, same-sex marriage, gun control, health care, taxes and the environment. Time and again the rivals took pains to stress their agreements, sensing that voters are turned off by conflict. Gore, in particular, had to mind his manners after his heavy sighs and interruptions put off some voters in the last debate.

"It seems like we're having a love fest tonight," the Texas governor said at one point. "I believe it when he says he has a good heart," Gore said of Bush, then moving on to criticize Bush's policy priorities on taxes and spending in Texas.

The ending was not so rosy, when moderator Jim Lehrer raised the character questions being stirred by aides in both campaigns: Can Gore be trusted? Is Bush smart enough to be president?

The vice president owned up to "getting some of the details wrong" in last week's debut debate and apologized, his way of responding to the Bush campaign labeling him a "serial exaggerator." He wasn't about to repeat that kind of rhetoric but he wasn't shy about pointing out some incidents of Gore error or exaggeration.

Gore was careful to avoid stretching the truth Wednesday night. He called American one of the most powerful nation's in history "that I know of anyway" and followed up his critiques of Bush's issues with a cautious refrain: "Have I got that wrong?"

Bush poked fun of his own tendency to torture syntax. "I've been known to mangle a sil-lable," he said, adding that Gore's credibility or the trustworthiness of any candidate should be a campaign issue and that its significance as an issue would be decided by the voters.

Gore said he doesn't call Bush a bumbler and "language like that" shouldn't be used. Yet his aides and press releases frequently make fun of Bush's verbal slips and question his intellectual heft.

But if voters are more interested in issues than bickering, the candidates offered plenty to consider.

On foreign policy, Bush said the administration hasn't been tough enough on Saddam Hussein and challenged the merits of U.S. loans to Russia; the vice president played a visible role in U.S. Russia policy.

Gore said the administration inherited the Iraqi problem because Bush's father "for whatever reason" didn't remove Hussein at the end of the Persian Gulf War.

Bush said forces were overextended, but struggled to provide specifics other than the Haiti intervention -- and the Balkans, and he said U.S. troops shouldn't come out of the Balkans yet. U.S. forces are mostly out of Haiti now.

Gore defended using troops to prevent genocide, and suggested that Bush would not go so far.

On domestic policy, Gore said he supported hate crimes legislation. Bush said he did, too, but said the best way to stop hate crimes is put criminals to death.

They tangled over taxes, with Bush strongly defending his across-the-board tax cut -- something his own advisers said he failed to do in the first debate.

"He believes only the right people ought to get tax relief," Bush said. "I believe that everybody who pays taxes out to get" tax relief.