Clinton Stays Course, Steps Up Bush Attacks : Politics: Democrat, refusing to comment on renewed draft issue controversy, bashes President on education.

In the parlance of politics, what Bill Clinton did on Wednesday is known as staying “on message.”

Confronted with renewed controversy about how he avoided being drafted during the Vietnam War, the Democratic presidential nominee refused any comment and went about his business of the day: bashing President Bush.

Before several hundred fans at a junior college here in suburban Washington, D.C., Clinton excoriated Bush for his education policies and promised the nation’s schools would receive an infusion of money if he reaches the White House.

Much as he had on Tuesday--when Clinton scolded Bush for what he said were plans to balance the federal budget through cuts in Medicare payments to elderly recipients, the Arkansas governor sought to depict the President as a threat to everyday Americans.

“Do we want to stay with trickle-down economics for four more years, or do we believe that there is nothing wrong with the American Dream--it hasn’t failed--but these policies have and we’ve got to change them?” Clinton asked as he stood surrounded by students at Montgomery College.

He added: “I very much want this election to be about the education of our children and our adults. I wake up every day thinking about things that I don’t think cross this Administration’s mind, except at election time.”

Throughout the day, Clinton steadfastly refused to comment on a Los Angeles Times story published Wednesday that described an organized effort undertaken by a relative in 1968-69 to keep him out of the Vietnam War draft.

Clinton, who was a student at Oxford University in England at the time, has maintained throughout the campaign that he never received, nor sought, any unusual or favorable treatment from Arkansas draft officials.

But The Times’ story reported there is evidence the candidate benefited from a concerted lobbying campaign orchestrated by an uncle, Raymond Clinton, to delay his nephew’s military induction through the draft.

Raymond Clinton is dead. But according to Henry M. Britt, the uncle’s attorney at the time who said he assisted in the lobbying effort, it included arranging the offer of a Navy reserve assignment, created especially for Bill Clinton at a time when there were no openings in the local reserve unit. Bill Clinton ultimately did not accept the Navy offer. He joined--and then quit--a Reserve Officer Training Corps program, then received a draft number high enough to keep him out of the war.

The lobbying for the Navy reserve slot was part of a larger effort that appeared to have enabled Clinton to complete his first year at Oxford despite lacking the protection of a formal draft deferment, The Times reported.

According to Selective Service records, Clinton’s pre-induction physical was put off for 10 1/2 months after he was classified 1-A, or available for the draft. His physical was delayed more than twice as long as anyone else registered with his local draft board and more than five times as long as most, according to the records.

None of the actions taken on Clinton’s behalf were illegal; indeed, many in his generation undertook efforts to avoid service in the unpopular war. But questions about Clinton’s case have plagued him in the current campaign because the candidate’s chronology of the events involving his draft status has differed from the recollections of others and from government records.

On Wednesday, the Bush campaign attempted to fan the controversy, releasing a written statement from Dominic DiFrancesco, past national commander of the American Legion. “Regardless of one’s views about the war or the draft, don’t the American people deserve the truth on these important issues?” the statement asked.

And Vice President Dan Quayle, campaigning in Kansas City, said Clinton “has a credibility problem. He is going to have to come clean with the American people and answer the questions.”

Referring to questions that four years ago surrounded his actions during the Vietnam era, Quayle said: “I chose to serve in the Indiana National Guard. I answered all the questions the media put to me in 1988. . . . Bill Clinton is going to have to answer those questions, too.”

Clinton, on Tuesday, asked to respond to The Times’ story, said that he had previously revealed everything he knew about the draft issue and that “the only military options that I considered or was offered” involved the ROTC program.

On Wednesday, Clinton said that he “didn’t know anything” about The Times’ story, although he acknowledged having read it. “I have nothing more to say,” he added.

Aides to Clinton indicated that in their view, the new controversy would blow over if he withheld comment. One aide dismissed Britt--the attorney for Clinton’s uncle--as a “Republican hack.”

So Clinton stuck closely to his attack on Bush’s record on education. For example, he said Bush should scrap his recent pledge of a broad tax cut in favor of putting more money into education.

Clinton received repeated rounds of applause from his audience, the biggest of which greeted his vow to initiate a student loan program that would allow any student to borrow money for college from the government. The loan would be paid back either through deductions of future income or by performing one to two years of community service at a reduced salary.

“We can change the whole face of America with the brightest Americans giving two years of their lives to building this country,” said Clinton, who has been touting the plan since his announcement for the presidency last fall.

Going after Bush with vigor, Clinton accused the President of being insensitive to the financial straits in which college students and their families find themselves.

“After a decade in which tuition costs are the only basic in the family’s marketbasket of economic needs that went up faster than health care, this President has tried to cut back on grants and loans that helped millions of young people from poor and middle-class families,” he said.

Today he plans to tour hurricane-devastated South Florida, which has already been the recipient of two such visits by Bush. Unlike the President, who dispensed promises of federal help to those who suffered losses because of the storm, Clinton will be able to offer only good wishes.