From: bowler@athena.mit.edu (Bert Smith)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
Subject: GEORGE BUSH, STOP THE RED-BAITING
Date: 8 Oct 1992 12:35:16 -0500
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu


                GEORGE BUSH, STOP THE RED-BAITING

 *    Bush's latest attack on Bill Clinton for a trip he took 23 years
 ago is a pathetic attempt to divert the American people from the
 worst economic record in 50 years.  It is a sign of pure
 desperation.

 *    Bush said last night it's been an ugly political year.  He's
 right -- and he's responsible for it.  It's smear campaigns like he's
 running that have turned off the American people.

 *    The American people don't want to hear about Bill Clinton's 1969
 itinerary, they want to hear about the course America is going to
 take.  Bill Clinton has a plan to create millions of new jobs,
 provide every American with affordable health care, and improve our
 schools.  George Bush can only offer more of the same.

 *    Because the Republicans have such a miserable economic record,
 they've resorted to lobbing hand grenade after hand grenade, hoping
 that one will explode.  Even as he was attacking Clinton, Bush told
 Larry King, "I don't have the facts."

 *    Consider the source: these scurrilous charges were started by
 Bob Dornan ranting on the House floor, who admits he has no evidence
 and was "speculating."  They were picked up by the Washington Times,
 and fanned by Bush deputy campaign director Mary Matalin and press
 secretary Torie Clarke.  And we all know who gives them directions:
 James Baker, the former Secretary of State.

 *    One sign of Bush's desperation is his moving to a direct attack
 on Clinton's opposition to the Vietnam war.  Recall Bush's 1989
 Inaugural Speech when he pledged to the American people to end
 divisions over the war:

      "[The Vietnam War] cleaves us still.  But friends, that war
 began in earnest a quarter of a century ago; and surely the statute
 of limitation has been reached.  This is a fact: the final lesson of
 Vietnam is that no great nation can long afford to be sundered by a
 memory."  1/20/89

 *    There's a name for Bush's attack -- red-baiting.  Bush might
 have been a good candidate during the Cold War, he's not a candidate
 for the future.  With this latest slur, he sounds like Joe McCarthy.
 Next thing he'll be calling for the revival for the House UnAmerican
 Activities Committee and blacklisting.

 *    George Bush is nothing if not inconsistent.  He attacks Clinton
 for not remembering who he met in Moscow 23 years ago, but Bush can't
 remember who he met with during the Iran-Contra scandal in 1986.  He
 attacks Clinton for going to Moscow one year after the Soviets
 crushed the Czech reformers in Prague, but as President of the United
 States, Bush sent his national security advisor Brent Scowcroft to
 China within weeks after the Chinese brutally crushed the democratic
 student protest in Tianamen Square.

 *    As all Rhodes Scholars are encouraged to do, Bill Clinton
 traveled as a tourist during his 40 day winter break in 1969.  He
 visited several countries in Northern Europe during December 1969 and
 early January 1970.

 *    Moscow was just one of many places Clinton visited as a tourist
 during his Northern European vacation.  He traveled alone, without a
 sponsor, and he paid his own way.

 *    At least eight of the 32 Rhodes scholars in Clinton's class also
 traveled to Moscow on their own or in small groups.  There were no
 restrictions on traveling to Moscow. It was very inexpensive.

 *    Clinton's travels took him to Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland,
 Russia, and Prague, Czechoslovakia before returning to England.
 Clinton traveled Europe as a tourist -- not to attend any meeting or
 demonstration.  While in Norway, he visited a friend from Hot Springs
 who was attending Oslo University.  He met Father McSorley
 coincidentally at the Oslo train station, they traveled to the
 University where Clinton was introduced to McSorley's friends, and
 then Clinton went to visit his friend.

 *    Clinton spent Christmas in Finland with the family of a college
 friend before heading to Moscow where he spent five or six days
 touring.

 *    Clinton has repeatedly said that he opposed the war in Vietnam
 and that he attended several anti-war marches.  He participated in no
 anti-American demonstrations.

                            -30-30-



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