Calling Bush ‘Toady’ to Hussein, Gore Steps Up Campaign Role

Sen. Albert Gore Jr. thrust himself to the forefront of the still-blurry Democratic presidential campaign picture Wednesday by denouncing President Bush as “toadying up” to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein before the Persian Gulf War and for allowing Saddam’s Baathist regime to remain in power after the war.

“His (Bush’s) vision of the new world order is based on the old world principles of whoever is in power, that’s his buddy,” the 43-year-old Tennessee senator said at a breakfast session with Washington reporters.

Meanwhile, another 1992 Democratic presidential possibility, House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt, took himself out of the race. In a letter to House colleagues, the Missouri congressman said that he believed he could make his greatest contribution to the party’s future by staying on the job on Capitol Hill.

Gore’s sharp attack on Bush gave added weight to his disclosure that he has turned his attention “full bore” to the question of whether he should seek his party’s nomination and will make up his mind by September. Gore said that no matter whom the Democrats nominate next year, the centerpiece of their campaign to regain the White House will be domestic policy.

However, many Democrats believe that--because of his vote to use force in the Persian Gulf and his expertise in arms control--Gore would be better suited than most of their party’s presidential prospects to challenge Bush in the foreign policy arena, where the President himself is strongest.

Gore seemed eager to play that role at the breakfast session, where he likened the Bush Administration’s friendly attitude toward Saddam Hussein’s regime before the invasion of Kuwait to its willingness to send a diplomatic mission to the Chinese government after its 1989 massacre of political dissidents.