Time - Man of the Year/Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso/moy/100592/10059934.000

Text File | 1993-04-08 | 4KB | 90 lines

                                                                                COVER STORIES, Page 34

LIES, LIES, LIES

The Whole Truth and Nothing But?


Call them lies, call them fudges, all three candidates have
committed their share

    BUSH

    1. Iran-contra. The credibility of Bush's repeated
insistence that he was "not in the loop" on the
arms-for-hostages deal has been steadily eroded. Documents
revealed in early September suggest that despite his claims to
the contrary, Bush knew in early 1986 of objections to the sale
by Secretary of State George Shultz and Defense Secretary Caspar
Weinberger.

    2. Abortion. Bush regularly declares, "My position on
abortion hasn't changed." Well, not recently, anyway. Bush
backed the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision when he ran for President
in 1980, but moved to the right as Vice President under Reagan
during the 1980s and, in order to curry favor with the G.O.P.
conservatives, eventually came to oppose the landmark decision.

    3. Clarence Thomas. When he nominated Thomas in July 1991,
Bush insisted that he was "the best man" to sit on the Supreme
Court. But even the President's aides admit that a jurist of
Thomas' modest qualifications would never have been considered
for the job unless he was a black conservative.

    CLINTON

    1. The Draft. Sheer luck combined with a high lottery
number was how Clinton used to explain sitting out the Vietnam
War. Charitably put, this answer was stunningly incomplete.
Only when prodded has Clinton admitted that he schemed to get
into an ROTC program at the University of Arkansas, though he
never enrolled. And, oops, Clinton also conveniently forgot that
he once received a military-induction notice.

    2. Marijuana. He always handled the drug-use question by
insisting, "I never broke the laws of my country." Only in a
debate before the New York primary was Clinton pressed on
whether he had ever used drugs abroad. The answer: a confession
that he had taken a puff at Oxford, coupled with that now famous
-- and widely doubted -- exculpatory phrase "I didn't inhale."

    3. The Gulf War. Clinton says that he would have voted for
the Senate resoluauthorizing the President to go to war, but
also that he agreed with the minority position "that we should
give sanctions more time and maybe even explore a full-scale
embargo." Hawk or dove? Your call.

    PEROT

    1. Navy Discharge. Perot, an Annapolis graduate, claims
that he cut short his Navy hitch because his commanding officer
wanted him to bend or break shipboard rules. The officer, now
retired, flatly denies this. Another Perot explanation -- that
he was shocked to discover that sailors used profane language
-- belongs in the "didn't inhale" category.

    2. The Self-Made Man. Perot boasted of founding Electronic
Data Systems with no other resources than the $1,000 put up by
his wife Margot; later he acknowledged that the figure was
merely the amount of the Texas registration fee.

    3. July Pullout. When Perot withdrew from the race on July
16, he cited the risk that his candidacy might lead to a
constitutional crisis by causing an electoral-vote deadlock and
throwing the election into the House of Representatives. Since
that scenario had been widely discussed for months, Perot's
tardy reaction to it suggested two other reasons for his
pullout: 1) the realization that he could not win, and 2) his
unwillingness to bankroll a full-fledged campaign.