Hi Brock,
See:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/For...-61b9d32967e4/
Intersetingly, your second code snippet works for me provided a content control is selected.
If you need to work with selections, you can use 'Application.ScreenUpdating = False' to hide what you're doing from the user and, if you set a range to the user's selection before making any selections with your own code, then re-select that range afterwards, the user need never know the selection had changed in the interim.