Perot’s Charges of ‘Dirty Tricks’

Perot’s charges raise some interesting possibilities: that Perot may be having paranoiac delusions; that Bush/Quayle might actually undertake so dirty a trick as the disruption of a young woman’s wedding. But Perot insists the threat was made, and I’m inclined to believe him. And the Republicans insist they would have gained nothing by spoiling the wedding, and that too is believable. What’s going on?

How about this? If, like everyone else, the Bush/Quayle campaign knew Perot has a penchant for intrigue and that he idolizes his children, then they also knew that the mere rumor of a plot to disrupt his daughter’s wedding would be enough to drive him out of the race. There was no plot to carry out a dirty trick. The dirty trick was the rumor of a plot itself, and Perot fell for it. So Marlin Fitzwater’s claim that Perot’s charge of a GOP plot is “preposterous” may well be true; and Perot’s claim, in the last debate, that the Republicans have made dirty tricks into a “fine art” may be truer than he realizes.

MARK D. MORELLI

Los Angeles