31.   Administration officials have said privately that the White House could have handled the matter with greater tact, and Rice conceded as much Wednesday.

32.   After weeks of confusing messages, Bush said the government was still learning how to handle the matter.

33.   But a spokesman for Barnes said Miller had made it clear he would handle the matter.

34.   But in his second statement, late Friday afternoon, Biden again sharply criticized the way the White House had handled the matter.

35.   But Ives does not handle matters clumsily.

36.   But soon after, Kroll said, the Russians told him they would handle the matter themselves.

37.   But Nova Scotia is now feeling pressure from national scrutiny to take another look at how it has handled the matter.

38.   But the Clintons could not have handled this matter worse if they had put their collective high-level IQs together and set out to make the worst possible impression.

39.   But the office that would handle the matter was closed on Tuesday, its employees furloughed by the shutdown of the federal government.

40.   But the two sides disagree, rather vehemently, about how the school handled the matter.