AVOIDING THE VIETNAM WAR.When Bush's campaign asked prospective Republicans if they would like to be the vice presidential nominee, one of the very first questions on the disclosure form was a simple, "Have you ever been arrested?" Another demand from those with military records was the dates and the places that he served. In fact, it was a requirement to for a top secret clearance to account for every month of one's life.

But Bush himself refused to bother with these questions as a presidential candidate. He was number 500 on the waiting list for the Texas Air National Guard. Yet he was promptly commissioned as an officer. He denied that he was given preferential treatment. When records showed that for several months in 1972 and 1973 he had never appeared at a Mississippi unit, he simply denied that he had been AWOL.

Bush made a conscious decision to withhold the fact of a drunken driving conviction from the public. When his arrest was finally revealed five days before Election Day in 2000, he maintained that he was protecting his daughters. In 1996 he was suddenly dropped from jury duty on a drunken driving case and was asked directly if he had ever been busted for driving drunk. He merely replied that his record was not perfect as a "youth." Then he denied to a reporter from a Dallas newspaper that he had ever been arrested.

RECEIVING PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT. While still at Yale, Bush reported to Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts four months before graduation in 1968. He took the Air Force Officers Qualification Test and scored a weak 25 percent for pilot aptitude on the screening test. After graduating in the spring, he packed his suitcases and returned to Texas where his parents handed him an education trust fund check for $17,000.

At the same time, the United States was at a crucial junction in the Vietnam War. The Pentagon was escalating the war, as the Viet Cong were infiltrating into South Vietnam's principle cities during the Tet holidays. During 1968 the North Vietnamese also attacked Khe Sanh, a strategic American base located below the DMZ next to the Laos border. In 1968 over 100,000 men across the nation were on a waiting list to join the only branch of the military which did not send soldiers off to war -- the National Guard.

Bush was able to avoid the Vietnam War by entering the Texas Air National Guard at the age of 21 while most inductees were shipped over to Southeast Asia. But Bush tells another story. He claimed that slots were open in the Air National Guard and that he signed up to fly an F-102 Interceptor. According to Bush, "The options either were to avoid the draft or sign up, and I signed up." Bush succeeded in avoiding Southeast Asia, unlike his father who had been a hero in World War II.

The Los Angeles Times reported on July 4, 1999 that Bush was able to become an officer without special training. In addition Bush had no aviation experience. After examining over 200 pages of documents and interviewing dozens of National Guardsmen, Los Angeles Timesreporters concluded that Bush received favorable treatment and uncommon attention. the Texas Air National Guard had about 900 slots for pilots, air and ground crew members, supervisors, technicians, and support staff. Sergeant Donald Barnhart said that he kept a waiting list of about 500 applicants' names. .

Barnhart said it took up to a year and a half for one name to move to the top of the list. But because of his privileged class status, Molly Ivins (Shrub) wrote that Bush was assigned one of the last two slots in the state. This came after he scored a dismal 2.5 --- the lowest score acceptable --- on the qualifying test. Bush never placed his name on a waiting list. He did not have to wait. He was sworn into the 147th unit on the very day that he applied. But one cannot say that it was Bush's fault that he was born into the class the system was designed to protect.

"Junior" also received support from Sid Adger, a Houston businessman with close ties to then-Congressman George H. Bush, to pull strings to get him into a local unit. Also, Ben Barnes, Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, was a close Bush family friend who used connections to find a way for the young Bush to evade the Vietnam War.

According to Charles Lewis (The Buying of the President 2000), a friend of the Bushes called Barnes and asked for him to find a slot for Bush in the Air National Guard. Barnes in turn called General James Rose of the Air National Guard and recommended Bush for a pilot position. Barnes aide was Nick Kralj who, along with Robert Spellings, ran an underground railroad to quietly moved the sons of prominent Texans into the National Guard. Others who were given preferential treatment during the peak of the Vietnam War included the sons of Texas Governor John Connally and Senator Lloyd Bentsen Barnes. Even members of the Dallas Cowboys football team were given slots in the Air National Guard so they could dodge the draft. Another privileged son, Dan Quayle, received preferential treatment. Ironically, it was also in 1968 that Quayle was able to avoid Vietnam duty when his wealthy parents were able to pull strings for him to enter the Indiana National Guard. After completing his initial training, Quayle usually served just one weekend a month and a two week period during the summer.

Bush first met with the unit's commander in his Houston office and made his application -- all before his graduation in June from Yale. His records listed no ROTC experience or engineering or aviation experience, which were considered desirable. But the other applicants on the waiting list all had aviation experience of some sort. In his application, Bush cited work experience as summer jobs and part-time employment as a messenger, a ranch hand, an oil field "roustabout," a sporting goods salesman, and a bookkeeper. Nevertheless, Bush was able to become an officer without special training. He was sent to basic training and awarded a special commission, so he instantaneously became a second lieutenant.

Texas Speaker of the House Ben Barnes acknowledged that periodically distinguished residents of the state would contact his office requesting assistance in obtaining slots for their sons in the National Guard. Barnes denied that he ever received a call from the senior Bush or anyone else in the family, but he did acknowledge that Sidney Adger, an influential Houston oilman and long time friend of the Bushes, interceded on behalf of the young Bush. According to Barnes, Adger asked him to find a slot in the Air National Guard for Bush..

Another connection that the Bush family had was with Commander Walter "Buck" Staudt. He first met the senior Bush when he was a United States congressman and a member of the Houston Chamber of Commerce aviation committee. Staudt told the Washington Post that the young Bush was accepted immediately into the Air National Guard because there were "five or six openings for pilots." But later Staudt admitted to the Houston Chronicle that Bush's wealthy background helped him qualify for one of the slots.

Staudt classified young Bush as prime officer material. Staudt wrote, "Applicant is a quiet, intelligent young man who has the interest, motivation and knowledge necessary to become a commissioned officer in today's Air Force and Air National Guard flying programs." In a separate report, Staudt added, "Bush meets all the requirements established for this appointment program."

Staudt recommended Bush for a direct appointment which allowed him to become a second lieutenant right out of basic training without having to go through 23 weeks of training in the rigorous officer candidate school. The process also cleared the way for a slot in pilot training school. In July 1968, an examining board approved the direct appointment, finding that Bush's physical and moral characteristics were all "satisfactory." Staudt was a member of that board. But Staudt declined to estimate how many men received such special appointments. Two years later, the Texas Air National Guard's special commission process was discontinued in the 1970s after the war ended.

Air Force veteran Charles C. Shoemake, who later joined the Texas Air National Guard, said that direct appointments were rare and hard to get and that they required extensive credentials. He said, "I went from master sergeant to first lieutenant based on my three years in college and 15 years as a noncommissioned officer. Then I got considered for a direct appointment. I didn't know whether I was going to get into pilot training."

After completing basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Bush was promoted to second lieutenant in a few months, one of the most rapid rank ascensions in military history. A three-person examining board, one which Staudt was a member, approved the appointment in July. Staudt arranged for a ceremony in his office -- highly unusual -- and the Bush family was invited. Bush's father pinned the bars on his son, and the Bushes along with Staudt posed for pictures.

In November 1968, Bush spent a year for pilot's training at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia. He was assigned to a F-102, an interceptor aircraft that was being phased out of the regular Air Force since it was not needed in Vietnam. The Texas Guard had acquired the aircraft for maneuver exercises over the Gulf of Mexico.

GOING AWOL? In May 1972, with the approval of his superiors, Bush sought a permanent transfer to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama that did not require weekend drills or active duty. He hoped to be stationed in Montgomery while working on the unsuccessful Senate campaign of former Postmaster General Winton Blount in 1972. However, Air National Guard headquarters overruled that decision. On May 2, Bush's two immediate superiors at the 111th, one of them a friend, signed a document stating that they could not perform his annual officer efficiency report for the period of May 1, 1972 to April 30, 1973, because Bush "has not been observed at this unit during the period of this report" and "has been performing equivalent training" at the Montgomery unit. The document was dated a day after Bush was supposed to have done duty in the unit. The official record that chronologically listed Bush's service included no evidence of service between May 1972 and October 1, 1973, the official date of his discharge.

According to the Atlanta Constitution (November 1, 2000), Bush failed to take his annual flight physical in July 1972, a requirement before he reached his 26th birthday, Consequently, the Air National Guard Headquarters suspended him from flying status. As an automatic disciplinary action for defying orders to appear for the physical, he was reassigned to the Obligated Reserve Section in Denver. Bush never fulfilled the last two years of his six-year obligation with the Air National Guard.

The Boston Globe (May 23, 2000) reported: "In his (Bush's) final 18 months of military service in 1972 and 1973, Bush did not fly at all. And for much of that time, Bush was all but unaccounted for: For a full year, there was no record that he showed up for the periodic drills required of part-time guardsmen. But Bush maintained that he attended all Air National Guard meetings at Maxwell Air Force Base. But he claimed that he could not recall exactly what his duties were.

Bush first became concerned about his alleged AWOL status in 1998, when he was running for a second term as governor, about allegations that he was given preferential treatment to land a slot in the Air National Guard. So he retained an attorney, Harriet Miers who was paid $19,000 to investigate the issue. She and her aides concluded that Barnes had helped Bush land a slot in the Air National Guard in 1968 after being lobbied by Adger. Miers spoke with Barnes who acknowledged that he had never talked to Bush's father about asking for the favor. Adger was already deceases, and since that time Barnes passed away. Bush knew that he was off the hook.

Bush was profiled in Air National Guard press releases where he was portrayed as getting "high" on flying. But at one point, Bush was suspended from flying after failing to "accomplish" the annual physical required of pilots. But in 1999, according to the Atlanta Constitution(November 1, 2000), the Bush campaign erroneously claimed that he never took the physical in Montgomery because his personal physician was in Houston. In fact, only Air Force flight surgeons can give annual flight physicals to pilots. Bush could have taken the exam at Maxwell Air Force Base.

In May 2000 General William Turnipseed said that Bush did not report for duty, although he was required to do so. His orders, dated September 15, 1972, said, "Lieutenant Bush should report to Lt. Col. William Turnipseed, DCO, to perform equivalent training." Turnipseed added, "To my knowledge, he never showed up."

Bill Burkett, a former lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard, said in the Sunday London Times (November 5, 2000) that Dan Bartlett, a Bush adviser, "scrubbed" the file. Bill Burkett maintained that "as the State Plans Officer for the Texas National Guard, I was on full-time duty at Camp Mabry when (Bush aide) Dan Bartlett (not related) was cleansing the George W. Bush file prior to G.W.'s presidential announcement. For most soldiers at Camp Mabry, this was a generally known event. The archives were closely scrutinized to make sure that the Bush autobiography plans and the record did not directly contradict each other. In essence, it was the script of the autobiography which Dan Bartlett and his small team used to scrub a file to be released.

Bill Burkett added, "This effort was further involved by General Daniel James and Chief of Staff William W. Goodwin at Camp Mabry. I knew one person who worked within the records scrub who commented to me, while at the smoke area, that the Bush files really showed some problems with his ‘blue-blood service record." Bill Burkett maintained that Bush's record could be verified through the Freedom of Information Act and that the review of military personnel files is very basic.

Even though the Air National Guard was not used in Vietnam, Bush said that he would have gone to Vietnam had his unit been called up. There was no indication that any rules were broken in order to provide a slot for Bush. And a Bush spokesperson denied that he was treated differently from other recruits. Bush said, "I knew I was going into the military and would have liked to come out with a skill. Your options either were to avoid the draft or sign up, and I signed up." Bush campaign spokesman David Beckwith said that Bush's special commission and treatment in the Guard were "routine. Our information is there was absolutely no special deal." He also said that transfers were available to Air National Guard members and that the press releases were only an attempt by state military officials to obtain free publicity for the Air National Guard.

During Bush's presidential campaign, the issue over the "missing" months of Air National Guard duty resurfaced. The Boston Globe dug into the matter and found that there was no record that Bush ever served in the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, and Bush was unable to locate pilots who would have remembered him. Kenneth Lott, who signed the orders ordering Bush to report to the base in Montgomery, said, "I don't recall ever seeing the guy (Bush)."

While campaigning for the presidency in Tuscaloosa, Alabama on June 16, 2000, Bush was asked at a news conference about his 1972 Alabama service. According to the New York Times(June 24, 2000), Bush claimed that he specifically recalled being on the Montgomery base. He said, "I was there on a temporary assignment and fulfilled my weekends at one period of time. I made up some missed weekends." He added, "I can't remember what I did, but I wasn't flying because they didn't have the same airplanes. I fulfilled my obligation."

Expanding on Bush's remarks, campaign spokesman Ari Fleischer quoted Bush as saying he did "paper shuffling" in Montgomery. "He thinks it was desk work." Scrambling to substantiate Bush's claim that he actually reported for duty in Alabama, campaign spokesman Dan Bartlett reviewed hundreds of pages of the National Guard's payroll records at its repository in Denver and finally announced that he could not find military documents which corroborated Bush's contention. Bartlett claimed that "the official records were either lost or misplaced or not filled out correctly or not deposited." Bartlett tried to locate military personnel who may have served with Bush in late 1972 in the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group in the Alabama capital. Bartlett said that Bush remembered meeting Turnipseed and performing drills in Montgomery sporadically during the campaign and more frequently after the election in November and December. Bartlett said, "Governor Bush specifically remembers pulling duty in Alabama at the end of the campaign."

In addition, the Associated Press reviewed nearly 200 pages of Bush's military records released by the National Guard Bureau in Arlington, Virginia. They contained no evidence that Bush reported for duty in Alabama. And Roberto Trinidad, freedom of information officer for the Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver, said, "His (Bush's) payroll records are not here."

Bush's campaign moved quickly to dispel suspicions that he never showed up for three months of duty. According to Newsweek (July 17, 2000), his campaign produced an old girl friend, Emily Marks, who stood by his story. She asserted that in 1972 Bush had told her that he had to return to Montgomery to fulfill his reserve requirements. Bartlett said, "This corroborates what the governor has been saying. The American people have seen the facts, and they understand that Governor Bush was a good pilot and served admirably."

The Bush campaign also pointed to a torn piece of paper in his Guard records, a statement of points Bush apparently earned in 1972-73, although most of the dates and Bush's name except for the "W" had been torn off. According to the torn Air Reserve Forces sheet, Bush continued to compile service credits after returning to Houston, winding up his fifth year with 56 points, six above the minimum needed for retention. However, Bush's annual effectiveness report, signed by two superiors, says "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of the report," May 1, 1972 to April 30, 1973.

Colonel Bobby Hodges was Bush's commanding officer in Houston. Hodges said that he never saw Bush at the Texas base since he left Montgomery. Quoted in the Washington Post(November 3, 2000), Hodges said, "If I had been there on the day(s) he came out, I would have seen him."

CHARGES OF VIOLATING SEC LAWS. In the summer of 1990, there were signs that Saddam Hussein might be invading Kuwait. As explained in Chapter 3, Bush's Harken Oil Corporation, which had just signed a contract to drill in the Persian Gulf off the coast of Bahrain, was jeopardized even before its first well was scheduled to be drilled until early 1991. In addition, Harken Energy owed $150 million to banks and other creditors. Harken Energy was on the verge of collapsing.

Bush quickly reacted to the negative news in June 1990 by unloading . He unloaded 212,140 shares of Harken stock, a majority of his portfolio. The transaction came a week before the end of the quarter when Harken Energy announced a loss of $23.2 million. Bush cashed in for $4.12 a share, selling his 212,140 shares -- two-thirds of his total holdings -- for $848,560. A week later, the stock plummeted to $2.37 a share. Eight days later the company finished the second quarter with a spectacular loss of $23.2 million -- more than eight times the loss it showed for the second quarter of 1989.

Over the following six months, Harken Energy's stock lost 60 percent. Bush never filed the stock sale with the SEC until the first week of March 1991. Later that year, the SEC investigated Bush's transaction for the possibility of insider trading. Bush maintained that he had filed the missing disclosure form. He waited eight months before notifying the SEC of the sale of Harken Energy, missing the filing deadline for reporting insider trades. He claimed that the SEC fully investigated his stock transaction in October 1994, and he boasted that he was exonerated.

However, Bush may have violated federal securities law at least four times in the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) by Knut Royce who was interviewed by Talk magazine. A 1991 internal government memo of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission was obtained by CPI. The investigation into a sale by Bush of Harken Energy was conducted because Bush sold his shares in the stock which subsequently plummeted. Investigators found that Bush had made a habit of filing notice of insider information and sales with the SEC in an extremely untimely fashion. The media made much of the investigation at one point, alleging that because the SEC did not file charges on the one previously known sale of Harken shares in 1991, no laws were violated. CPI found that there were not one, but at least four separate instances where Bush had illegally waited to file notice with the SEC, whose investigators could see a pattern to Bush's late filings. It appeared to CPI that Bush was attempting a cover-up.

The SEC requires that all company insiders must report publicly all transactions, both sales and purchases by filing a Form 4 report by the tenth day of the month following the deal. However, Bush did not do that. This can alert outside investors that a poor earnings report was about to be released and that an officer or director benefited from information that only an insider could have known. This is a violation of securities laws.

All four late filings involved transactions totally more than $1 million dollars. While the SEC decided not to press charges, it was obvious from the SEC memo that the investigators felt Bush knew he what he was doing. He had already filed Form 4s in other transactions involving other companies at which he either sat on the board, or was director of, in a timely fashion.

A SCANDAL AS GOVERNOR. Funeralgate surfaced as a major scandal of the Bush administration in 1998. Service Corporation International (SCI), Texas' largest funeral home, was owned by multimillionaire CEO Robert Waltrip, a close Bush family friend. The company's troubles began in 1998 when the funeral commission received complaints that unlicensed apprentices were embalming bodies at two SCI funeral parlors. Waltrip's goal was to interpret Texas law in a way that allowed SCI to continue making huge profits on its embalmings. The state funeral agency mandated that SCI must notify consumers of costs when it used third party contractors to do embalmings.

Newsweek (August 16, 1999) reported that the Texas Funeral Service Commission (TFSC) employees made a surprise inspection at two of the SCI's funeral homes in April 1998. As a result, Waltrip spoke with Bush five days later on April 15. The conversation revolved around a six page letter that Waltrip wrote in protest of the inspections. On June 16 this version of the conversation changed. The second version had Waltrip in Bush's office waiting for Joe Albaugh, the governor's chief of staff. Then Bush happened to "pass by," and they only "exchanged pleasantries," discussing nothing of the investigation. According to a TFSC document, Waltrip "has never discussed" with Bush his complaints about the funeral commission. Bush's office denied that anything improper occurred, and Bush himself refused to comment on the scandal.

Eliza May, the director of TFSC, issued a subpoena to seek a deposition from Bush on August 26, 1998. Bush refused to answer a subpoena about the case. Subsequently, May was fired in February over an undisclosed grievance filed by the employee after she was assigned to investigate connections between Bush, SCI, and campaign contributions. However, May's attorney claimed that she was fired because she was trying to uncover conflicts of interests between having funeral home directors run the commission while investigating their own industry. In August 1999 TFSC recommended fines of $450,000 on SCI. Waltrip's corporation refused to pay, contending the commission misinterpreted state embalming laws. Subsequently, state Attorney General John Cornyn, a close friend of Bush, ruled that SCI was not compelled to pay the fine.

Bush denied any knowledge of the probe and said that he had had "no conversations" with any funeral commission officials about it, according to Newsweek (October 30, 2000). But in a deposition in October 2000, McNeil described an encounter with Bush at a 1998 fund-raiser. According to McNeil, Bush asked him, "Have you and Mr. Waltrip got your problems worked out?" McNeil replied, "We're still trying to work on that, governor." Bush then said, Do your job." May's lawyers said that the testimony showed why they needed to grill Bush under oath. Bush's affidavit was "disingenuous at best," according to one of May's lawyers.

CHARGES OF USING COCAINE. While campaigning for the presidency, Bush was quick to answer some questions about his personal life. He was candid when he denied having extramarital affairs since his 1977 marriage. Rumors floated that Bush had smoked pot and snorted cocaine during his partying days in the 1970s. He acknowledged that he had been arrested for a college prank at Yale where he stole a Christmas wreath. And he had another run- in with law enforcement authorities while at Yale after he and other students tried to tear down the goal posts after a football game with Princeton. Bush acknowledged having a drinking problem until he made the decision to quit in 1986 at the age of 40. But he never admitted to having any arrests -- until a story broke only five days before Election Day.

Bush refused to answer the question about his prior use of cocaine. In the past, every GOP candidate had said that he never experimented with cocaine -- except George W. Bush. The Republican Party has always positioned themselves as having the moral high ground and saying that character counts. In the spring of 1999, a Newsweek reporter asked him, "If you're asked specifically about marijuana or cocaine, what's the answer?" Bush replied, "I will say what I did as a youth is irrelevant to this campaign. What is relevant is, have you grown up, and I have."

The question of illegal drug abuse continued to be raised in the summer of 1999. Initially, Bush refused to comment. When the media continued to question him, he finally responded to a Dallas Morning News (August 18, 1999), saying that it was relevant and that he would respond. Bush answered by saying that he could pass the current White House directive which disqualifies its employees if they used illegal drugs in the past seven years. The day after Bush made this statement, the headlines of the Dallas Morning News read: "Bush Says That He Hasn't Used Drugs in the Last Seven Years."

But the issue of the use of illegal drugs did not stop there. On the next day, Bush upped the ante three more years when he said that he could have passed a background check on illegal drug use when his father was president, and that was when there was a 15 year limit on drug questions. This meant that Bush denied using illegal drugs since 1974 when he was 28. Next, a reporter asked Bush to clear the record since he was an adult at age 18. He refused to answer. Bush only attributed problems which he encountered in his early adult life to "youthful discretion." The Texas law was among the harshest in the nation in the 1960s and 1970s when some people claimed that Bush engaged in illicit drugs . The sentence for the first offense of marijuana was two years to life.

According to the United States Bureau of Justice Statistics, there are 7,400 people in its prisons on marijuana charges, and 3,100 of them are there for possession alone. Another 5,700 are in county jails for possession of marijuana. That adds up to 8,800 people for doing time for exactly what Bush may have done. According to the State Department of Public Safety, 28,158 were arrested in 1998 for possession of cocaine.

BUSH'S DRUNK DRIVING ARREST. Only five days before Election Day, the Bush campaign was hit by a bomb shell when it was disclosed that the governor had been arrested for drunk driving in 1974 while visiting his parents' summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine. Erin Fehlau, a reporter for WPXT, said on ABC's "Nightline" that she had been tipped off to the story by a police officer in a Maine courthouse She said that the officer had overheard a lawyer talking about Bush's arrest. Fehlau then tracked down a copy of the accident report, as well as the original arresting officer, Calvin Bridges. He told the Associated Press that he recalled driving home from work after midnight that September night and spotting a car slipping briefly onto the shoulder before getting back on the road. Bridges said that Bush failed a road sobriety test and a second test in the police station, registering a 0.10 percent blood-alcohol level, the legal limit at the time. Asked about Bush's demeanor, Bridges replied, "The man was, and I say this without being facetious, a picture of integrity. He gave no resistance. He was very cooperative." Bridges said that Bush spent about 90 minutes in custody.

Erin Fehlau, a reporter for WPXT, said on ABC's "Nightline" that she had been tipped off to the story by a police officer in a Maine courthouse She said that the officer had overheard a lawyer talking about Bush's arrest. Then Tom Connolly, the 1998 Democratic candidate for governor in Maine, came forward and claimed that he was the source behind the story, but he refused to divulge the person who put him onto the story. Fehlau confronted Connolly who later returned from his office with a copy of the documents that the Biddeford court clerk had found only a few hours earlier. Connolly told her that he had heard all about it from an unidentified source who fit Childs's description. Childs was a Democratic lawyer and part-time probate judge. Both Childs and Connolly were part of the interconnected world of Maine party politics, and Republicans obviously tried to tie them to the Gore campaign. Gore's press secretary Christopher Lehane from Kennebunk was the only one who had connections with Childs and Connolly. Lehane's sister worked in a prominent Portland law firm in which former governor Tom Curtis was a senior partner. Newsweek (November 13, 2000) reported that Curtis had backed Childs for his probate judgeship. But Lehane, his sister, and the law firm all vehemently denied any involvement.

Fehlau then tracked down a copy of the accident report, as well as the original arresting officer. Calvin Bridges, the arresting officer, told the Associated Press that he recalled driving home from work after midnight that September night and spotting a car slipping briefly onto the shoulder before getting back on the road. Bridges said that Bush failed a road sobriety test and a second test in the police station, registering a 0.10 percent blood-alcohol level, the legal limit at the time. Asked about Bush's demeanor, Bridges replied, "The man was, and I say this without being facetious, a picture of integrity. He gave no resistance. He was very cooperative." Bridges said that Bush spent about 90 minutes in custody.

According to Howard Fineman, Mark Hosenball, and Michael Isikoff of Newsweek(November 13, 2000), in late October a mysterious figure walked into the office in Biddeford, near Kennebunkport. He asked to see any records they might have on Bush, but the search provided no information. Then on November 2 another person, whom the clerk declined to identify, called with a case number. Within minutes the clerk found the records. She made several copies. That afternoon two or three individuals, identifying themselves as reporters, called for copies. Early that morning a man who identified himself as Bill Childs called the Maine secretary of State's office, seeking companion records. Within hours reporters were on the line, also asking for them. By midday officials had found several documents which were soon being faxed to the reporters, including the one from Fox in Portland. Childs, who declined to be interviewed, was heard bragging that afternoon in the courthouse in Portland about his knowledge of the matter. Paul DeGrinney, a local GOP lawyer, said that "he (Childs) started telling anyone who would listen."

The Bush camp worked to defuse the eleventh-hour controversy by turning the issue against Gore. Communications director Hughes immediately questioned the timing of the release of the information, hinting that the Gore camp may have been responsible. In an attempt to shore up the damage, Bush immediately told a Michigan audience, "I've made mistakes in my life. But I'm proud to tell you, I've learned from those mistakes." Bush said that he failed to come forth earlier because he wanted to shield his two daughters. In an interview with a television station in Pennsylvania, Cheney labeled the matter "old news" and praised his running mate for being "very forthright." Cheney refused comment about his own drunken driving arrests which took place in 1962 and 1963. Gore, meanwhile, distanced himself, saying, "All I know is this: Our campaign had absolutely nothing to do with it, and I'm talking about the issues."

Then the incident took a new turn when reports surfaced that Bush was caught in several lies. In a November 1998 interview with the Dallas Morning News reporter Wayne Slater, Bush was asked if he had any other arrests. He replied, "After 1968? No." Slater recalled that Bush seemed ready to change his response when his spokeswoman Hughes stopped the conversation. Immediately after Bush's drunken driving story broke, it was Hughes again who initially questioned the story's timing. She also claimed that Bush had been totally open about his past and had not spoken of this bust because he was not asked.

In a 1999 interview with CBS News Correspondent Lee Cowan of CBS station WBZ in Boston, Bush denied there was any so-called smoking gun. And Bush lied on "Meet the Press" (November 21, 1999). Tim Russert asked, "If someone came to you and said, ‘Governor, I'm sorry, I'm going to go public with some information,' what do you do?" Bush replied, "If someone was willing to go public with information that was damaging, you'd have heard about it by now. My background has been scrutinized by all kinds of reporters. Tim, we can talk about this all morning."

BUSH'S 1998 JURY SERVICE. As Bush's credibility and forthrightness were challenged, another story broke. At the time Bush was bounced from the jury pool, it was widely believed that he was looking to avoid questions about his hard-drinking past that would surely have come up during jury selection. When Bush was assigned to a drunk driving case, his attorney, Al Gonzales, asked to meet with the counsels in Judge Crain's chambers. Gonzales asked the attorneys not to object when he would ask would ask the court to excuse Bush from jury duty because of the possibility that he might be called on to pardon the accused. P. David Wahlberg, the defense attorney did not object. Neither did John Lastovica, the deputy city attorney who went forward and presented the information to lead prosecutor Ken Oden for approval.

Four years later, Oden said in an interview to Salon (November 2000) that Lastovica did not to object to Gonzales' argument. Oden asserted that he wanted to make sure that there was no chance that Wahlberg could use Bush's removal from the jury as a basis for any possible appeal. Oden said he instructed Lastovica "to make sure the defense attorney can't complain about this later. And the cleanest thing would be for him to make the motion to excuse the governor." Oden added, "With that agreed-upon script, the lawyers came out of Crain's chambers and Wahlberg made the motion."

Oden believed that he was purposely misled by Bush and Gonzales in an effort to avoid jury service. Oden told Salon that Bush "used his position as governor" to avoid having to answer potentially embarrassing questions about his past. Oden charged that Bush's failure to answer some of the questions on his jury questionnaire, coupled with his lawyer's efforts to get Bush excused because he might someday be called on to pardon the offender, was part of an effort to deceive prosecutors and others. Oden added, "It's logical to see that there may have been motives at work that none of us knew about. But at the time, we were just trying to be courteous to the governor."

Oden also criticized Bush for failing to fully answer a questionnaire given to prospective jurors. It asked: "Have you ever been an accused, or a complainant, or a witness in a criminal case?" Given Bush's arrest in Maine, he should have checked the space next to "accused." Instead, it was left blank. A couple of other questions were also ignored, though most of the queries were answered.

Wahlberg confirmed Oden's version of the events. He told Salon that Gonzales' argument that Bush could not serve because he might be called upon to pardon him was "laughable." But Wahlberg said that he made the motion to excuse Bush because "it was a foregone conclusion" the governor would be excused, and it was also in the best interest of his client. Wahlberg's client was later convicted and sentenced to probation.

At the time of Bush's dismissal, the Houston Chronicle (October 9, 1996) reported that it was "a development that allowed him to avoid potentially embarrassing questions about whether he had ever climbed behind the wheel after drinking." After being struck from jury service, Bush was asked if he had ever been arrested for driving while intoxicated. He answered, "I do not have a perfect record as a youth."

A GIRL FRIEND'S ABORTION. In the winter of 1971, Bush was dating Robin Lowman (now Robin Garner) who later married an FBI agent. Bush got her pregnant and arranged an illegal abortion. It was two years before the Roe v. Wade decision.

The source of the story felt threatened by Chandler and by a Bush supporter named Jim Bath. Bath played a role in the BCCI banking scandal. The unnamed source was a friend of Lowman's and the girlfriend of the man who arranged the abortion. His name was Robert Carl Chandler and a Bush supporter. Chandler made arrangements for the abortion at Twelve Oaks Hospital (later renamed the Bayou City Medical Center) in Houston. The source of the story overheard the telephone call by Chandler to arrange the abortion, and she visited Lowman at the hospital after the abortion.

Hustler magazine's Larry Flynt appeared on a talk show in San Francisco in October 2000 and was very specific about the proof that he claims he has that Bush "was involved" in an early 1970s abortion. Appearing on Bernie Ward's KGO-AM 810 talk show on October 24, Flynt said that the abortion took place in Houston in 1970 during the elder Bush's campaign for a seat in Washington. At that time, the younger Bush was working in the campaign. Flynt claimed that he had affidavits from four witnesses, contradicting an earlier report from the BBC that Flynt was basing his story on the word of one person. In fact, Flynt said the BBC was considering going with his story, along with the London Times. Flynt also described the consternation at CNN when he broke the story and discussed the ability of the Bush spin machine to smother information.

Five days before, on October 19, Del Walters of ABC-TV interviewed Flynt. It was aired the following day on "Crossfire" with Flynt claiming that he had information on Bush's sexual life. The "Crossfire" conversation went:

Walters: "Are you currently seeking information or do you have information on him (Bush)?"

Flynt: "Yes we do. … It depresses me to see this nation get so excited about somebody like him. We know a lot about Bush, some may be coming out before the election, but I don't know."

Walters: "But people are gong to say, ‘How do we really know you have the goods on George W. Bush and how do we know you're not just posturing for publicity.' "

Flynt: "Okay, first of all, when we nailed (Congressman) Livingston, he did an interview in the New York Times the next day and referred to me as a bottom feeder and they called me for a comment and I said, ‘That's right, but look what I found when I got down there.' "

Walters: "A lot of people are going to ask, ‘Should sex have anything to do with the presidential election?' "

Flynt: "Absolutely, because there's nothing more political than sex. … Sex is the most political thing in the world."

The Bush administration immediately issued a statement: "Mr. Flynt is not a credible source on any issue and we're not aware of these allegations." According to Drudge Report (October 20, 2000), Bush responded to Flynt's charge that he was "involved in" an abortion in the 1970s by having a "senior Bush source" say, "CNN's standards have hit a new low, if that is even possible! It appears the liberal media is becoming desperate as Election Day nears." Neither Bush nor any campaign spokesman reportedly disagreed with the Flynt charges. The conversation went:

Novak: "Mr. Flynt, never let it be said that we censor any of our guests here on "Crossfire," and you said you wanted to talk about the election. Tell me what you wanted to say."

Flynt: "Well, during the impeachment debacle, we did an investigation which resulted in the resignation of Bob Livingston and others and we have continued this investigation and for eight months we've been looking into George W. Bush's background. And we've found out in the early 1970s he was involved in an abortion in Texas, and I just think that it's sad that the mainstream media, who's aware of this story, won't ask him that question when they were able to ask him the drug question without any proof at all, and we've got all kinds of proof on this issue."

Novak: "Well, you're ..."

Flynt: "You know, the guy admitted he was a drunk for 20 years, and if the abortion issue is true then that puts him lower on the morality scale than Bill Clinton."

Novak: "Mr. Flynt, you said if it's true and you have no proof of that. I gather you are a very strong."

Flynt: "The hell we don't have proof."

The deletion ended here. The conversation continued:

Novak: "Sir, I gather you're a very strong Gore supporter. Is that correct?"

Flynt: "I'll vote for the lesser of the two evils. I don't like either one of them."

Press: "All Right, Larry Flynt, a man who speaks his word, but we remind you they are Larry Flynt's words and not ours. Larry Flynt, thank you very, very much for joining us. Donna Rice Hughes, good to have you here."

Hughes: "Thank you."

Press: "You never know. Live television. Bob Novak and I will be back with our non- pornographic closing comments. Too bad. Coming up."

Later, the program was transcribed in the CNN "chat room" after Flynt's appearance on the program:

CNN: "Mr. Flynt, I would like to know how you plan to protect yourself from a law suit by claiming to have the goods on G.W. Bush."

Flynt: "Because we have them and the truth is an absolute defense."

CNN: "When and where are you going to publish information about George W. Bush?"

Flynt: "When I said that we had the proof, I am referring to knowing who the girl was, knowing who the doctor was that performed the abortion, evidence from girlfriends of hers at the time, who knew about the romance and the subsequent abortion. The young lady does not want to go public, and without her willingness, we don't feel that we're on solid enough legal ground to go with the story, because should she say it never happened, then we've got a potential libel suit. But we know we have enough evidence that we believe completely. One of the things that interested us was that this abortion took place before Roe v. Wade in 1970, which made it a crime at the time. I'd just like the national media to ask him if abortion is okay for him and his family, but not for the rest of America. We're not looking at it as a big issue, we're looking at it as a situation of people not being told the truth. I think the American people have a right to know everything there is to know about someone running for President."

THE MAN IN THE EMPTY BLUE SUIT.

Bush once boasted about his ability to make decisions. The Texas governor said, "I get the facts, weigh them thoughtfully and carefully, and decide." What he did not say is that he normally does this in 15 minutes.

Throughout his political career, Bush failed to demonstrate that he had an interest in policy, a knowledge or grasp of issues, and an overall curiosity about the world. He frequently projected an image of the student who rarely did his homework and who skated from subject to subject, learning just enough to get through the big exam.

Bush's daily schedules, correspondence, and other documents in 1997 were obtained by the New York Times (October 16, 2000) under public-information laws in Texas. The session of the Texas State Legislature is only 144 days over a two year span, so the Times chose 1997, since that was a year during which legislators met. Therefore, Bush had an opportunity to be immersed in policy issues. The information obtained by the Times indicated that he devoted himself remarkably little to policy details -- including whether to go ahead with executions -- and instead spent most of his time lobbying legislators and speaking to the public and the news media.

The 900-page stack of Bush's schedules and correspondence obtained from the governor's office portrayed him as a governor who worked short hours and spent little time studying specific issues or working on executive matters. The schedules showed that Bush typically had his first office meeting about 9 a.m. Then he takes a two hour midday break, consisting of a three mile jog near Town Lake in center of Austin, according to scheduling records obtained by the Los Angeles Times (August 25, 2000) under public record laws. He called it "Gov time" or "private time." He also went to the University of Texas stadium where world-class sprinters, distance runners, and pole vaulters trained for the 2000 Olympic Games. Track coach Dan Pfaff joked, "He writes the checks." Afterward, Bush sometimes visited the football weight room and received a rub-down. Then his work day normally ended with his last meeting by about 5 p.m. A large portion of the officially scheduled meetings were "photo opportunities," interviews with reporters, or meetings with school groups or other ceremonial occasions. As reported in the New York Times (October 16, 2000), relatively little of the day was devoted to hard-core examination of the issues.

The governor normally went to bed early. But he was able to stay up until 10:30 p.m. on the evening before he delivered his acceptance speech at the Philadelphia convention. He enjoyed talking about his multi-million dollar ranch in Crawford where he built a new home with wide porches, three bedrooms, and views everywhere of the circling prairie. Bush told reporters that he looked forward to the Democratic convention so that he could take a break. He said in the Los Angeles Times (August 25, 2000), "I really want to go to my own place. My own bed, my own house, my own dog. That's what I'm going to do. I enjoy being by myself. I enjoy being out on the land." Bush officials defended his schedule, saying that it was a careful balance between getting out their message and making sure that Bush does not tire.

Bush was able to move around in life as a result of his father's connections with wealthy and influential friends. The money connection, along with his attempt to woo others with his personality, were his only assets. And occasionally his "photo ops" misfired. On the opening day of dove season, September 1, 2000, 30 reporters tagged along with him for the big hunt. A bird flew up and he blew it out of the sky with his shotgun. He held up the bird proudly for the news photographers. Then the reporters pointed out that he had shot not a dove, but a protected songbird known as the killdeer. Bush promptly confessed, paid a $130 fine, and began a news conference that afternoon by trying to inject some humor: "Thank goodness it wasn't deer season. I might have shot a cow."

Compared to his contemporaries, Bush wielded relatively little power over his state. He cannot fire most agency heads. He failed to regulate oil, one of the most important businesses. He cannot even grant death penalty pardons. Most of the power and work in Texas was left to the state legislature and other independent state bodies.

However, there was one area where Bush held complete political sway: his ability to appoint about 3,000 people to the state boards and commissions. When some appointees were accused of racist comments and charged with felony crimes, Bush kept a distance. He only stepped in once to demand a resignation in six years. Yet he had no direct power to fire his own appointees. Dismissals required a special vote of the state Senate.

Florita Bell Griffin, a member of the governing board of the Texas agency that helped provide better housing for low-income families, was indicted in June 2000 on federal charges for her alleged involvement in a kickback scheme. Prosecutors alleged she traded votes to win tax credits for a company in which she was a silent partner. At one point, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development threatened to stop dispersing any more money to the board until Bell Griffin stepped down, and federal dollars amounted to 90 percent of the board's budget. Although a deal eventually was worked out to allow the board to continue its work, Bush never stepped in to ask his appointee to resign. He did issue a statement expressing his concern about the charges.

Charles Williams, chief of police in Marshall, was another appointee who caused troubles for Bush. According to the Los Angeles Times (October 10, 2000), Williams, who served on the board that sets training standards for police, was deposed in a 1998 racial discrimination lawsuit. He claimed that "nigger," a term used to describe elderly black men as a child in Oklahoma in the late 1940s, was not derogatory and racist. Neither did he concede that "porch monkey" was a derogatory term. Williams said in his sworn statement, "I was born and raised with blacks, and back then we had Nigger Charlie and Nigger Sam, Nigger Joe, and we regarded those people with all the respect in the world. That was their name."

Clay Johnson, Bush's chief of staff, defended Bush in the Los Angeles Times, "When they stop functioning well, we get in there and work with them to try to make sure they have a high level of functionality. That's the preferred course of action, as opposed to, ‘You're fired, and we're going to replace you.' "

Another controversial appointee was William "Reyn" Archer, head of the state health department. In early 2000 several Latino groups called for Archer's resignation after he had said Latinos lacked the belief "that getting pregnant is a bad thing." Bush never commented on the accusations, though a spokesman distanced Bush from the controversy, saying in the Los Angeles Times that Archer's comments were "not in keeping with the spirit" of the governor's attitudes. Archer later apologized for his remarks.

MUMBLING AND BUMBLING. Maureen Dowd of the New York Times characterized Bush as a fraternity jock who had no sense of culture. She wrote of his shallow life style and characterized him as a fraternity jock who preferred to watch sports rather than to absorb himself in culture. Bush never took in an opera or read an intellectual novel. Instead, he was one who would rather watch a Texas Rangers baseball game. Another reporter asked Bush about his interests outside of politics. He answered that he read newspapers and watched sports. Once again, Bush indicated that he had no background or interest in the fine arts.

Throughout the fall of 1999, Bush was the frontrunner and, therefore, used various lame excuses to duck debates with his GOP rivals. When he finally agreed to debate in New Hampshire, his stilted unnerving performance raised doubts about his capability to serve as president. It appeared as if he had trouble memorizing his cue cards. The governor was unable to demonstrate the stature of a president. He was criticized in his first two outings for being stiff and inarticulate. He frequently smirked on the debate stage, exemplifying an aura of arrogance. His cockiness was coupled with several unresponsive and contrived answers in the debates with his GOP contenders. He answered questions with one-liners which he had previously memorized. Many times he seemed unresponsive, giving answers which were unrelated to the questions.

Bush demonstrated weak speaking skills in the first part of the campaign. As reported in the Washington Post (June 25, 2000), Bush "believes that his homespun delivery -- complete with stumbles and swallowed words -- is a sign of sincerity and authenticity." Even though he improved his speaking skills over the course of the 2000 campaign, his speeches demonstrated a lot about the limits of his skills. He failed to perfect the use of the TelePrompTer. He was unable to scan an entire passage of a speech in one glimpse and then to focus on the audience and the cameras. He had difficulty keeping his place as he turned from one transparent panel on the TelePrompTer to the other. He frequently paused at the end of a line of text, even though it was not the end of the sentence.

He also seemed uncomfortable with the formal English of his text. In conversation, Bush uses many contractions: "that is" becomes "that's," "you are" is "you're," and "what will" is "what'll." He sometimes sounds like a schoolboy reading aloud from a grammar book.

Bush seemed to reinforce the allegation that he was nothing more than a political novice. Just prior to his announcement that he would be a presidential candidate, he was quoted in the Dallas Morning News (May 22, 1999) as saying, "There should be limits on freedom."

It was not uncommon for Bush to make flippant and cavalier remarks, especially early in the campaign. He frequently stumbled and misspoke. On occasions he tried to inject humor into his answers in an effort to avoid answering controversial issues which he could not answer. And at times he tried to side-step questions from the media and his opponents.

ARROGANCE AND INEXPERIENCE BECOME BUSH'S TRADEMARK. Bush's "cocky" and "arrogant" attitude continued throughout his campaign. It was not until the spring of 2000 that the Texas governor finally abandoned the "smirk" which had become his trademark. Since wrapping up the GOP presidential nomination, Bush sounded like a sore winner, making acid remarks about Gore and dismissing McCain. This renewed questions whether he was ready for his prime-time presidential run.

The New York Times (March 25, 2000) published a Pew Research Center poll that showed more Americans were becoming unhappy with Bush's persona. The percentage of Americans who disliked Bush because of his personality jumped from 19 percent in October to 33 percent. The figure for Gore among Bush supporters was 22 percent, compared to 24 percent in October. And 31 percent of all the poll's respondents chose a negative term when asked the one word that best described Bush, compared to 12 percent who thought of a negative term first a year ago.

While the majority of references to Bush were positive, the most frequently mentioned negative words were "arrogant," "dislike," "untrustworthy," "wimp," "bad," or "cocky." The most frequently mentioned negative word for Gore was "boring," and "dull" was second, tied with "politician," undefined as to positive or negative. Next on the negative list came "dishonest" and "incompetent."

Besides Bush's arrogant persona, his political resume consisted of merely six years as governor. And during that brief time, he held one of the constitutionally weakest governorships in the nation. Vice President asked, "You have to wonder, does George W. Bush have the experience to be president?" He added, "I think that these two issues are closely related. The people of this country overwhelmingly reject this risky tax scheme that would put Social Security and Medicare at risk and threaten our prosperity. So why is he proposing it, even though the numbers don't add up? Because the vast majority of the soft-money donors have this risky tax scheme as their personal top priority. The agenda of the special-interest donors supporting Governor Bush is completely different from the agenda of the American people." (New York Times, March 12, 2000)

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich told a Richmond Forum -- a group that puts on several public forums on a variety of subjects throughout the year -- that Bush and his staff were too inexperienced to handle his presidential campaign. On April 15 Gingrich told an audience, "There's too much Austin" in the Texas governor's campaign. According to the New York Times(April 17, 2000), Bush also said that Bush needed to add more experienced advisers if he wanted to win the election.

On the same weekend, Patrick Buchanan appeared on "Fox News Sunday" and complained that the GOP had become as bad as the Democrats in refusing to fight for the American culture. He said that "the party under Bush has given in to cultural demise." Buchanan charged that the Texas governor refused to rule out abortion advocates as potential running mates. He added that Bush, by meeting with Republican gays, was saying that the GOP would not stand on the principle of family values. Buchanan also said, "He's (Bush is) raising the white flag and stacking arms (surrendering) in the cultural war for the soul of this country."

Questioning Bush's experience and capacity to serve as president after only one and one-half terms as governor, Gore emphasized that in Texas the governor was actually the fifth least powerful statewide official. Gore added, "Does Governor Bush have the kind of decision-making tests under his belt to be president? ... the experience? ... the sense of perspective?" Gore said sarcastically, "Six years in a position that is more symbolic than powerful has some value. ... And (Bush) has exercised what power the office does have to make Texas the worst state in the nation" on the issues of pollution, hate-crime legislation, and concealed weapons.

While Bush spent a large deal of time touring the country since he announced his candidacy in the summer of 1999, the question was asked, "Who's running Texas?" Most of the responsibility laid with the lieutenant governor who by law and tradition was the state's strongest official. The governorship has such limited power, and the Legislature only meets every two years. When a state emergency arose when the governor is absent, Lieutenant Governor Rick Perry became "acting governor." He had the authority over executions, command of the National Guard, and the power to call a special legislative session.

Perry replaced Bush for about 90 days in the last nine months. The lieutenant governor presided over several executions. His role in the process was to monitor court and parole board decisions, and to consult with state attorneys before formally giving permission for the execution to go forward. Perry also assigned committees to study several issues during the legislative interim, including education, water conservation, and transportation and infrastructure. Even capital punishment decisions were handled, ultimately, by the state Pardons and Paroles board. If Bush ever doubted if a prisoner received justice, he could easily grant a one-time 30-day reprieve.

A "BUSH LEAGUE" CAMPAIGN. Since the late 1990s, a press pool -- a small rotating group of reporters who accompany candidates -- has been standard procedure in nearly every presidential campaigns. Eleven news organizations asked the Bush campaign in a letter to "follow the lead of presidential candidates like Bob Dole in 1996 and Al Gore now, and allow a campaign-organized media presence whenever he is in public or traveling to private events."

Unlike Gore who welcomed reporters' questions, Bush isolated himself from the media throughout the early campaign until he was upset in the New Hampshire primary. In an attempt to bolster his popularity, he allowed the media limited access to himself, even though he still apparently feared responding without reading a Teleprompter or referring to a prepared statement. But when Bush fell behind in the polls during the early primary season, he relented and agreed to give reporters limited access to himself.

Yet Bush continued to keep a safe distance between himself and the media. Beginning in the early summer of 2000, Sandy Johnson, Washington bureau chief for the Associated Press, led a battle for nearly five months to lobby Bush to agree to more media coverage. He was still kept shielded from reporters when he was in Austin or at his ranch in Crawford. And reporters, photographers, and television cameras were not allowed to follow him at non-public events on the campaign trail.

But when the Texas governor dropped behind Gore in the polls after the Democratic convention, he realized that he needed to develop a better rapport with the media. After resisting for several months, Bush finally agreed to a "protective" media pool. For the first time, reporters were allowed to trail him when he chose to jog, went to a restaurant, or attended a fund-raiser. And reporters, photographers, and television cameras were allowed to follow him at non-public events on the campaign trail. However, the campaign drew the line at having reporters around while he was not campaigning in Austin or at his ranch in Crawford.

Hughes sought to downplay the role that Johnson played in allowing reporters more access to the governor. Hughes told the Washington Post (September 11, 2000) that Bush decided to allow the modified pool arrangement before he received the letter. She added that Bush does not want the media around when he was with his family because he "is a candidate; he is not the president."

NO BRAINS -- NO HEART. After Gore's large bounce in the polls following the Democratic convention, Bush appeared to be shell-shocked. Throughout the campaign, Bush had wrestled with the image which he portrayed of himself -- that he does not have the brains for the job. After lagging behind Gore for the first time, he made a record three bloopers in one appearance. Less than 15 minutes into a speech before a Des Moines, Iowa audience, Bush mistook "terrors" or "terriers" for "tariffs," and then twice he said "hostile" instead of "hostage." Finally, the inexperienced orator asserted that Clinton was in office for four -- not eight -- years. In a Washington Post article (August 22,2000), a Bush aide attributed the linguistic stumbles to "the end of a long day."

Then Bush ran into another roadblock. Suggestions that he lacked drive popped up time and again when he was upset by McCain in the New Hampshire primary. The issue of whether he had the heart for a tough campaign resurfaced after Gore's popularity received an extraordinary bounce after the Democratic convention. Bush responded with just a single stop in Tennessee, after which he returned to Texas to relax. Put on the defensive, Bush's campaign tried to portray its candidate as a hard worker, producing a list of his recent campaign stops and even suggesting that he was working harder than Gore. Bush spokesman Scott McClellan was quoted in the Los Angeles Times (August 25, 2000): "We've heard this all before. He doesn't have enough Washington experience, he's not smart enough, now he's not campaigning hard enough. This campaign will be won on issues and ideas."

BUSH LEAGUE MOUTH. Apparently unaware that a microphone had been turned on while campaigning in Pennsylvania, Bush pointed out New York Times reporter to vice presidential nominee Cheney and commented, "There's Adam Clymer of the New York Times; he's a major league asshole." Cheney replied, "Big time." While a few newspapers across the country mentioned the incident, most either buried the story in the middle of an article or refused to publish it. This came a day after Labor Day, a date that was considered important since it marked the starting point of the fall campaign.

Five months earlier, Clymer, a former deputy Washington bureau chief of the New York Times, wrote, "Texas has had one of the worst public health records for decades. ... But since George W. Bush became governor in 1995, he has not made health a priority, his aides acknowledge." Then the Bush campaign lodged a complaint about that story. Later in August, Clymer wrote that a Bush ad on prescription drugs had no accuracy because Bush had not proposed a plan on the issue.

"This is the kind of humanizing I'm not sure George Bush needs," said Fred Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard. Jake Tapper of Salon.com said, "This is very telling," saying that the Bush campaign had attacked Clymer for his coverage of stories pointing out Texas' dismal record in several areas. Tapper added, "Of all the heinous people Bush has encountered, the one we hear him saying something negative about is the one who pointed out that Bush's record on health care is pretty weak. What does he think it's going to be like if he actually gets elected president? He's been spoiled by a press corps that has generally been intimidated or lazy or fawning."

The New York Times Washington bureau chief, Michael Oresekes, defended Clymer: "We think Adam is an excellent and very experienced reporter. They've never complained to us about Adam Clymer. They did raise some questions about that story, and we didn't agree with them. We take complaints by phone, fax and e-mail, but not generally by open mike. It's not the standard approach."

THE "RAT" AD SENDS THE GOP SCURRYING. A September Bush ad, criticizing Gore's Medicare plan, contained a subliminal message containing the word "rat." Words flashed on the screen to echo the announcer's message: "The Gore prescription plan: Bureaucrats decide." As the announcer said "Bureaucrats decide," the word "rats" in large capital letters, flashed on and off the screen just as the phrase "Bureaucrats decide," appeared.

Alex Castellanos, who made the ad for the Republican National Committee, said in the New York Times (September 12, 2000) he flashed the word-- part of "bureaucrats" -- so it would look more visually interesting, and that it was just a coincidence that the letters appearing first spelled out "rats." He went on, "It's a visual drumbeat. People get bored watching TV. You're trying to get them interested and involved." The subliminal message was detected two weeks after it was aired, and it was promptly dropped by the Bush campaign.

"A rat sighting in a Republican television ad has sent candidates and the media scurrying," was part of a story in USA Today (September 12, 2000). A piece in the Boston Globe began with Bush spokeswoman Hughes offering cheese to reporters on the campaign plane as what she called "a metaphor for the bizarre nature of the story today. ... The story was about rats. ... But the visit by Hughes, and her overtures to a wary press corps, were noteworthy themselves, suggesting the campaign is trying to counter some harsh vibes it has begun to give off. Until recently, Bush was the undisputed ‘nice-guy' candidate, the one blessed with natural affability and charm." The New York Times front page article read, "As yet another of his campaign days skidded onto unexpected ground, Governor George W. Bush today defended a Republican television commercial that, in attacking Vice President Al Gore's plans for health care, includes a fleeting, almost undetectable image of the word ‘rats.' " The Washington Post story said in part, "George W. Bush set out today to talk about Medicare, but before he could even start the discussion it became clear that this was going to be one of those days when the presidential campaign took what Bush described as one of those ‘bizarre twists,' " And even the Dallas Morning Newsridiculed its favorite son, "Up early Tuesday for ABC's ‘Good Morning America,' George W. Bush stumbled into a rat's nest."

Bush promptly called the allegation "bizarre and weird." The governor added, "One frame out of 900 hardly in my judgment makes a conspiracy," But that is precisely the intent of a subliminal message -- something so quick that only the subconscious picks it up. Bush even fumbled when he used the word "subliminal." Several times, he called it "subliminable," apparently never having heard the word before.

Embarrassed Bush advisers tried to dismiss the importance of the ad by injecting some humor. Communications director Hughes said that the campaign "was not trying to get the rat vote." Jim Nicholson, national chairman of the Republican Party, also attempted to gloss over the importance of the ad: "It is clear that there was no attempt to deliberately manipulate anyone here. The only manipulation going on in this campaign is Al Gore's attempt to manipulate voters -- by promising them drug benefits that will never materialize." However, Scott Reed, campaign manager for Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign, did not imply that the subliminal plant was a fluke, saying, "Someone should have the grace to resign."

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, said in the Los Angeles Times (September 13, 2000), "The nature of the digital editing process means this didn't happen by accident. There are instances where people are playing around in the editing room late at night. ... They're not giving you that as the explanation. Jamieson added that Castellanos faced similar allegations regarding a highly controversial ad he did in 1990 for Senator Jesse Helms' race in North Carolina against Democrat Harvey Gantt, who was black. In the spot, the hands of a white man are seen crumpling a letter telling him he has been rejected for a job in favor of a minority applicant. Jamieson said that there was a subliminal message contained in a black mark on the crumpled letter. The mark appeared to be the hand of an African American person. Castellanos said that was a coincidence.

The Gore camp was shocked that the Bush campaign would lower itself. Gore said, "I think it's a disappointing development. I've never seen anything like it." The vice president said that he would not comment further. Lieberman called the ad "very disappointing and strange."