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Mike, I'm not disputing that the "The National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction" likely represents what even the Bush Administration might consider the "Bush Doctrine". What I'm trying to suggest is that when referencing something specific, you need to call it by it's proper name, not whatever nick names it's been given. Gov. Palin could have avoided a lot of unnecessary flack, if she simply responded, "What exactly do you mean by the "Bush Doctrine", and then went on to address specific points that were suggested. It was a loaded question, designed as a "gotcha" and it was successful
Let me try and step back from a political analogy and point back towards football. We all know how inportant Rule 2 is, because the definitions there are the only definitions that matter to the game of NFHS football. You can look up tripping in the dictionary and it's a little different than the tripping definition included in Rule 2.
But, if you were to trip an old lady carring a football down mainstreet, a policeman might still arrest you because his definition doesn't make allowance for tripping a runner, even though the old lady was carrying a football. When a Pop Warner coach yells "chop block" from the sideline, it's very possible that his definition of chop block is very different than what you know is the official NFHS definition, which is the only one that matters.
All I was trying to suggest about the term "Spirit of the Rule" is that it very often is used in a broad, often vague sense, and means different things to different people, so there is no single "official" definition to specifically relate it to. Basically it can mean whatever you want it to mean.
Was this rule likely intended to relate only to scrimmage kick situations, probably. Was there any idea to expand the exception to prohibit formations that nobody though of, probably not, because nobody envisioned the A-11 Offense when the rule was written. Does the language used in the current version of the numbering exception leave room to drive a truck through, absolutely. Does that circumvent or exploit the rule, absolutely. Is that exploitation dishonest, illegal, immoral or unethical, really doubtful.
All this weeping and gnashing of teeth about the "Spirit of the Rule" is little more than a smoke screen. Whether you don't like what it does, or how it set about doing it, doesn't matter. It doesn't violate the rule, and exception, as currently written, so the only choices available are rewrite it, or let it continue as is. That decision will be made by the rule makers and they're not going to pay a lick of attention to all the insults, speculations, presumptions and the rest of a lot of pure BS.
I anticipate there will be some sort of revision and I hope it just answers this question without creating a bunch more unanticpated consequences. We shall see.
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