customize isearch-repeat-forward

[peter hodgson <pclhodgson@comcast.net>]

'M-x version' yields:
GNU Emacs 22.1.1 (i486-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.10.11) of 2007-08-14
on palmer, modified by Ubuntu 
---------------------

fellow emaculates; the pleasure of your company these past weeks has
prompted me to refine some of my customizations;

here's what my .emacs used to say about isearch:

(global-set-key "\ee" 'isearch-forward)                                         
(global-set-key "\C-f" 'isearch-repeat-forward)                                  
(global-set-key "\e'" 'isearch-exit)                                            
(global-set-key "\e3" 'isearch-backward)                                        
(global-set-key "\e2" 'isearch-repeat-backward)                                 

everything worked fine; then i changed one line:

(global-set-key "\er" 'isearch-repeat-forward)

and now all hell's broken loose;

it starts out fine:

when i press <M-e>, i get "I-search:", so i type "key"; all occurences
of 'key' are highlighted, and the cursor is at the end of the first
occurence;

then i press <M-r>; 

instead of having the cursor move to the next occurence of 'key', it
stays where it was, and i get this message:

"Pending regexp I-search: key"

when i press <M-r> again, i get:

"Pending I-search: key"

and there's still no cursor movement; further pressing <M-r> toggles
between this two 'Pending...' messages;

BUT IF i press <Enter> after i type in "key", or after i get either of
the 'Pending...' messages, THEN when i press <M-r> it moves the cursor
through the occurences of 'key', in other words, isearch-repeat-forward;

i've been eating lots of steak lately, to facilitate healing a wound;
does this .emacs difficulty suggest my karma been compromised? or is
there a lisp solution?

thanks, imputerate