Bush Alleges Distortions by Press, Liberals

After flying to Ohio on Friday to collect a much-sought police endorsement, President Bush angrily complained that his criticism of Bill Clinton’s conduct as a youth had been unfairly distorted by the press and his left-wing critics.

“You let the liberal elite do their number today, trying to call me Joe McCarthy,” he said, as a crowd of uniformed police officers cheered their approval. “I’m standing with American principle. It is wrong to demonstrate against your country when your country’s at war.”

In renewing the attack Friday, Bush insisted that he was “not going to back away from it one single bit.” But his remarks also betrayed a skittishness about being perceived as unfairly seeking to sow doubts about the national loyalty of his rival.

After suggesting earlier in the week that there was something improper about a trip Clinton made to Moscow while a student at Oxford University in England, Bush steered a more cautious course, telling CBS that if Clinton had told the truth about the episode “then that’s the end of that one, as far as I’m concerned.”

Bush insisted throughout the day that he was not questioning his rival’s patriotism.

But he used strong terms to assert instead that Clinton’s role in the demonstrations in England more than 20 years ago reflected badly on his rival’s judgment and could impair the Democrat’s ability to lead the nation’s military.

Speaking to members of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest police organization, Bush noted pointedly that the 1969 London protests in which Clinton took part were staged at a time “when soldiers are being held captive and soldiers are dying in Vietnam.”

And he bluntly told a morning television interviewer earlier in the day that he regarded Clinton’s conduct as “wrong as it relates to being commander in chief of the armed forces. That’s where it really impacts.”

The Clinton camp and others have mocked the Bush assault as a post-Cold War revival of McCarthyism, and some Republicans and White House advisers have warned that the tactic could prove counterproductive if it is perceived as an attempt to malign Clinton’s patriotism.

In the 1950s, U.S. Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy (R-Wis.) led anti-communist hearings, held by the House Un-American Activities Committee. The hearings were marked by unidentified informers and reckless accusations.

Bush brusquely denied a report in the Los Angeles Times that his attack had been conceived during a Tuesday morning White House strategy session in which he met with Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) and other conservative Republican lawmakers. “It didn’t come out of that at all,” he said, insisting that he had addressed the issue Wednesday night on CNN’s “Larry King Live” only in response to a question.

And Bush complained bitterly that the press and others “from the liberal left” had distorted his criticism about Clinton’s involvement in the anti-war protests in suggesting that it carried a red-baiting tone.

“I think it’s a question of judgment and character,” he told CBS. “It’s not a question of patriotism. That’s the oldest ploy in the world, to throw up the flag trying to change the debate, and my view is I just think it’s wrong.”

Bush told CBS that he thought it was inappropriate for Clinton to have participated in demonstrations “against your country’s policy from foreign soil.” In his remarks to the police officers, he seemed to broaden that indictment by suggesting that demonstrations should not be staged “when your country’s at war.”

But a campaign spokesman, Tony Mitchell, later said that Bush had intended to limit his criticism to anti-American protests staged abroad and did not intend to broaden the scope of his assault.

Bush also did not fully explain why Clinton’s anti-Vietnam War activities would make him less fit to be a commander in chief. But he suggested that military officers who had fought or been taken prisoner in Vietnam might hold ill feelings toward a President who had actively demonstrated against the war.

Bush also called for Clinton to release documentation about his military draft record. Clinton, who avoided military service during the Vietnam War, told reporters six months ago that he intended to make such papers public.

As he sought to position himself as a faithful defender of the man in uniform, Bush gained an important boost in winning the endorsement of the 240,000-member police organization, with whom he has sometimes feuded.

Clinton has already collected endorsements from three rival police organizations, making unusual inroads into what is customarily a Republican base, and Bush’s opposition to curbs on handgun sales had led to concern that the FOP might also choose not to endorse him.

But law enforcement sources said the White House waged a vigorous fight to win support from a bare majority of the organization’s board, and its chairman, Dewey Stokes, who is reportedly seeking a post as a federal marshal, gave Bush an enthusiastic introduction.

Bush used his address to the group to depict Clinton as a “tax-and-spend, coddle-the-criminal man,” and he told the crowd: “I honestly believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that this Bill Clinton--I really honestly believe this--is wrong for America at this time.”

With time running short before Sunday’s first of three presidential debates, Bush devoted much of his morning to debate preparation with a small group of advisers who joined him in the Oval Office to review possible questions and answers.

White House officials said the group included Chief of Staff James A. Baker III, campaign Chairman Robert M. Teeter, Budget Director Richard G. Darman, Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater and aides Robert Zoellick, Dennis Ross, Robert Grady and Margaret Tutwiler.

He was expected to participate in his first full-scale mock debate at the White House this afternoon in which Darman is to portray Clinton and former Chief of Staff John H. Sununu will portray Ross Perot.

That Bush continued campaigning through Friday night, however, revealed much about the President’s debate style. While Clinton delights in poring over the details of his pre-debate briefing books, Bush prefers to stay at arms’ length from such specifics.

“You can overtrain for these things,” Bush said on “Larry King Live” Wednesday night, “ . . . you can get your mind cluttered up with facts, factoids, and I don’t want to do that. I want to stay on the main principles of why our agenda for renewal is the best to get this country moving forward.”

Today on the Trail . . .

Gov. Bill Clinton campaigns in Kansas City and St. Louis.

President Bush has no public events scheduled.

Ross Perot has no public events scheduled.