[TxMt] Odd double-clicking on whitespace behavior - also selects tags

First thanks to everyone who replied to my previous question.

I'm noticing a very odd behavior when I try to delete whitespace between two tags. Most (if not all) other text editors will select just the whitespace when I double-click on the whitespace area. However TextMate likes to also select the closing/opening bracket/ braces - which of course I don't want to delete.

So if I wanted to delete the space between <p>Hello </p>

I can't double-click on the whitespace between "Hello" and "</p>" without TextMate also selecting the "</" in the closing "</p>" tag.

Another example is if I have a closing brace "}" that is indented too much and I want to line it up with its opening brace, I can no longer double-click on the whitespace to the left of the brace without the brace also being selected. In fact I wasted 15 minutes or so trying to figure out how I broke a PHP script before it dawned on me that when I deleted the whitespace I also deleted a brace.

Is there any preference or setting that changes this odd behavior? I'm assuming TextMate does this for a reason, but I'm scratching my head as to how this editing mode would be useful.

thanks in advance!

brian