I got my kick on Wednesday from a Washington Post piece that tried to get to the bottom of just what did Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., say when he spoke on a radio station recently about Mexico and firearms entering that nation from the United States.

Did he say “act of war” on the part of the United States against Mexico? Or are his press aides correct when they say he said “active war” and that those who are repeating the more aggressive phrase are just trying to stir up trouble?

THESE KIND OF moments occur occasionally when it comes to dealing with political people. Somebody says something that they wish they hadn’t said, then tries to claim we all mis-heard them and they really said something rather innocuous.

Issa probably hopes his comments about a Justice Department program that is supposed to track the movement of firearms from the United States into Mexico wind up with the same fate. Just a little bit of confusion, before we all move on.

What caught my attention about the Post’s attempt on their website to get at the truth (it was part of their “Fact Checker” feature that claims to get at “the truth behind the rhetoric”) is that it left me all the more confused about what Issa may have said or meant when he opened his mouth.

I’m not about to claim that I know what he said. The bits of audio that now exist on the Internet are – to me – so inaudible that I can’t make out clearly what is being spoken. If you can tell me definitively, pass along what you know. I’d enjoy hearing a definitive answer – if one exists.

I DOUBT IT does. I doubt Issa really cares. My guess would be that he was just making some innocuous comments that were meant to tie the idea of “firearms” and “Mexico” in the same sentence.

We were supposed to skip the details and just think of Mexico as a dangerous place – which would fit the mental picture that Issa has often tried presenting during his time in Congress with his words and actions.

This is the same House of Representatives member who earlier this year came up with a bill that proposed giving permanent Visas to non-citizens who graduate from U.S. universities if they are able to find work with U.S.-based companies upon graduation.

He wants that as an alternative to the current visa lottery – by which people from around the world are picked at random each year to receive the visas that give them “resident alien” status and makes it possible for them to live openly in this nation.

OF COURSE, THAT lottery made it into the news last week when it turns out that a computer error caused the wrong people to get those visas – the lottery wasn’t random enough. Officials are going to have to do over the whole thing later this summer.

Whatever it was Issa had to say, my guess is that it was meant to stoke the confusion that all too many of us experience on these issues.

That concept, to me at least, is more offensive than anything that Issa might actually have said.