Perot Says Bush Substituting Media Events for Real Action

Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot, sounding more and more like a presidential candidate, lashed out Tuesday at what he called President Bush’s public-relations stunts to solve the nation’s domestic troubles.

Perot, who has said he will run for President as an independent candidate if volunteers get his name on the ballot in all 50 states, accused Bush of staging media events at schools to prove he is interested in education.

Citing Bush’s occasional trips to classrooms where he reads books to children, Perot said: “Just think how goofy that is! But that’s Washington, that’s free TV. Millions of Americans think he cares, but my idea is that if he cares, why doesn’t he do something?”

He also said he questioned the deepening of the federal deficit under Bush and his predecessor, Ronald Reagan, because both claimed to be fiscally conservative. “Maybe it is voodoo economics, but whatever it is, we are all now in deep voodoo,” Perot said.

Meanwhile, the Houston Post reported that Perot attempted to investigate a Missouri convict’s claim that he flew George Bush to Paris for a secret meeting about the U.S. hostages held in Iran in 1980. Perot confirmed that his aides sought to interview the convict, Gunther Russbacher, in February, but denied that he was trying to dig up dirt on Bush for use in a campaign, the paper said.

Russbacher’s claims relate to rumors that then-presidential candidate Ronald Reagan and Bush, his running mate, plotted with the Iranians to delay release of the hostages until after the 1980 election in order to harm President Jimmy Carter’s campaign.