Don't Throw Stones

"Who do you trust?" George Bush intones with moral indignation and grammatical error. It's his way of invoking the so-called "character" issue, to bring up a broad range of supposed flaws in Gov. Bill Clinton's public and private behavior.

But if trust is the issue, Bush has little ground on which to stand. His administration has been involved in more ethical quandaries than any president since...well, Ronald Reagan. And Bush's lack of honesty about certain policy issues makes Clinton look like a priest.

Let's begin with the granddaddy of Bush's ethical difficulties--his mysterious role in the Iran-contra debacle. Bush has said that he was out of the loop with respect to the diversion of funds from arms sales to the contras. We can take the president at his word on this, even though Bush's position at the time on the National Security Council and his close contact with those involved makes his assertions a little hard to believe.

And even if we do take him at his word, it's not clear that Bush has come clean about other areas of the fiasco. In 1987, at the apex of the controversy, Bush admitted that he knew about the arms sales themselves, and that the sales were designed in part to secure the release of American hostages. But he said he wouldn't have supported this plan if he had known that Caspar W. Weinberger '38 and George P. Shultz opposed it.

A memo released last August in court proceedings against Weinberger contradicts Bush's statements. The memo, dictated by Shultz to his assistant after a conversation with Weinberger, indicated clearly that Bush had discussed Weinberger's and Shultz's feelings on the matter. "It's on the Record [sic]," the memo said.

When Brent Scowcroft, the current national security adviser, was asked about this last summer, he waffled. "I think it's quite possible it was a truthful statement," he said of Bush's denials.

Bush sounds at least as unbelievable on this as Clinton has on his draft status.

And there are other shady dealings. We still don't know the full extent of American appeasement of Saddam Hussein before the Gulf War. Some now charge that the Bush administration was selling arms to Iraq right up to the time Hussein invaded Kuwait. And we do know that as secretary of state, James A. Baker III made sure that Iraq received $1 billion in farm credit guarantees despite the Agriculture Department's independent ruling to limit such guarantees because of concerns about Iraq's possible involvement in an international bank scandal.

In Libya, the administration has blustered angrily in public about maintaining strict sanctions while secretly granting special favors to U.S. oil companies doing business there. Some of the executives of these same companies donated money to Bush's 1988 campaign coffers.

And then there is Bush's pandering, which has received much less attention than Clinton's. At least Clinton's pandering doesn't involve actual policy decisions. One Bush aide even admitted last summer that the Bush campaign was "going to deserve a gold medal in political gymnastics." Still, the pander isn't a new tactic for Bush. His worst example remains his completely unprincipled reversal on the issue of abortion. Before signing on with Ronald Reagan in 1980, Bush was pro-choice.

Bush said in South Dakota that he wants a multibillion-dollar grain export initiative for American farmers even though it would complicate the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and ignore the one thing we thought Bush did believe in--free trade.

Bush announced in Texas his approval of a sale of 150 F-16s (which are made in the state) to Taiwan, thereby decimating a treaty with China.

Bush said he was committed to rebuilding Homestead Air Force Base, the one struck by Hurricane Andrew, even though the base, which would cost hundreds of millions to recreate, only narrowly escaped the list of bases to be closed last year.

And Bush retracted a plan to terminate an expensive space rocket engine program in order to save jobs--and votes--in the South.

And then there's Bush's general lying. He says Clinton raised taxes 128 times and is planning to raise them by $150 billion over the next four years. Sort of. The number of times Clinton increased taxes in Arkansas over 12 years can be computed a thousand ways, and if you use Bush's line-by-line counting measure, the president raised taxes over 300 times in four years. And anyway, Clinton's figure would actually be 138, not 128 (according to the Clinton-Gore people).

On Clinton's proposed tax hikes for the nation, his figures add up to a $46 billion tax increase (the $150 billion is offset by $104 billion in tax cuts). This is nearly $100 billion less than Bush raised taxes in 1990 (thus making himself a liar by rejecting his 1988 promise of no new taxes).

And Bush has openly, baldly lied to veterans groups. In Indianapolis just before going to the Houston convention, Bush told the Veterans of Foreign Wars that he wouldn't touch a dime of veterans' benefits. But in the one set of budget-cutting measures the president has sent to Congress, he included reductions in benefits that go to some vets.

The point here isn't that Clinton's character shines with moral polish. It doesn't. The Arkansas governor has withheld at least some information about his draft status (although not all the charges against him appear to be true). He has all but admitted marital infidelity. He has waffled on free trade and federal abortion funding.

But two points should be made. First, much more media attention has been showered on Clinton's "character" than on Bush's.

Second, when the alleged violations of the two are compared, Bush's seem more serious. Lying about Iran-contra versus lying about a 20-year-old's draft status. Waffling on abortion versus waffling on federal abortion funding. Fudging free trade versus fudging a treaty with China.

Bush wants you to decide this election on the issue of trust. In light of all his shortcomings, so do we.