Mr. Schwarzenegger had promised an on-time budget but was unable to deliver after negotiations deteriorated into name-calling and partisan wrangling over tangential issues.

In addition, several tangential, and in some cases new issues have been raised about Mr. Gates since his nomination.

On a tangential issue Mr Elliott writes that:

"This is not a tangential issue," Mr. Heidinger said.

But Mr. Kalikow made it clear that he considered the entire issue tangential to his main purpose.

The productivity of Cocoa programmers vs. say, Java programmers often comes up as well, but that's mostly a tangential issue.

He seemed reluctant to discuss even tangential issues.

The first was a New Jersey private detective who discussed the tangential issue of whether Antigua is known to be a place where money-laundering occurs.

"The B.C.C.I. case is not some tangential issue for Americans."

This isn't the first time in this quasi-campaign that Mayor Giuliani has lurched suddenly to the right on a rather tangential social issue.