(2003-11-17) -- Democrat National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe apologized today for mistakenly sending out a news release which indicated that the campaigns of Howard Dean and Wesley Clark had raised an astonishing $52.9 million over the weekend, with Mr. Dean edging out Mr. Clark by $1.5 million.

"It turns out that those numbers were actually box office receipts from this weekend's two top movies," said Mr. McAuliffe. "I apologize, especially to Howard, for the error."

The hastily-written news release apparently was sparked by media reports that "Elf" took in $27.2 million this weekend, followed by "Master and Commander" with $25.7 million.