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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lawdog who wrote (56889)	11/2/2000 3:30:50 PM
From: U Up U Down	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 769670

Reno Rejects Probe of Gore on Lying Roberto Suro Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, November 25, 1998; Page A1 Attorney General Janet Reno announced yesterday that she has decided against seeking an independent counsel to investigate whether Vice President Gore lied to Justice Department officials during an investigation last year of fund-raising phone calls he placed from his White House office during the 1996 campaign, declaring there are "no reasonable grounds" to pursue a case against him. washingtonpost.com

To: lawdog who wrote (56889)	11/2/2000 3:31:24 PM
From: jlallen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

You meant to post "all true" right? JLA

To: lawdog who wrote (56889)	11/2/2000 3:38:23 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

February 17, 2000 The New York Times THE VICE PRESIDENT Questions Over Veracity Have Long Dogged Gore By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE with JOHN M. BRODER LBANY, Ga., Feb. 16 -- Questions about Vice President Gore's honesty have emerged as a recurring motif of his contest with former Senator Bill Bradley for the Democratic presidential nomination. Mr. Bradley has angrily accused the vice president of a systematic effort to distort Mr. Bradley's record while whitewashing his own. The criticism of Mr. Gore has been harsh enough that President Clinton was asked about it today and offered a spirited defense of his vice president. "My experience is that he is exceedingly honest and exceedingly straightforward," Mr. Clinton said at a news conference. In an interview, Mr. Gore insisted that he had hewed to the facts both in describing his own positions and in characterizing those of Mr. Bradley. He said that Mr. Bradley equated policy disputes with dishonesty and that his Democratic opponent could not defend his own policies without resorting to personal attacks. "The pattern is one of Senator Bradley interpreting disagreement with his positions as dishonesty," Mr. Gore said aboard Air Force 2 on Tuesday night. "Just because one has the temerity to point out that Senator Bradley's health care plan would be an unmitigated catastrophe for poor people and others who depend upon Medicaid funding is not evidence that one is being untruthful." Mr. Bradley, in public appearances, press releases and interviews, insists that Mr. Gore has repeatedly and deliberately distorted his positions on health care, taxation, school funding and campaign finance in what he calls a "pattern of misrepresentation." And, Mr. Bradley and his aides say, Mr. Gore has offered accounts of his own record and personal history that are at times at odds with the facts. Some are familiar and fairly trivial examples, like Mr. Gore's taking credit for inventing the Internet or being the model for Erich Segal's "Love Story." But others, including his account of his service in Vietnam, his journalistic accomplishments, his views on the death penalty and abortion and his role in the Democratic fund-raising scandals of 1996, are substantial parts of his public record and rationale for seeking higher office. Are these exchanges part of the normal give-and-take of a political contest, the exaggerations and embellishments that are the ordinary vernacular of political speech? Or are they signs of a deeper problem that will continue to haunt Mr. Gore throughout the primary season, into the general election, and possibly into the Oval Office? The concern about Mr. Gore's truthfulness dates back to the earliest days of his political career. During his failed 1988 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, he exaggerated the danger he faced as an Army journalist in Vietnam and took credit for putting "a bunch of people" in jail during his stint as an investigative reporter at The Nashville Tennessean. The first was misleading; the second was false. During his Congressional campaigns in the 1970's and 1980's, he overstated his one foray into real estate development to persuade groups of business executives that he was one of them. That claim led Arlie Schardt, who was Mr. Gore's communications director during the 1999 presidential campaign, to warn the candidate in a memo "your main pitfall is exaggeration." In an interview, Mr. Schardt said that his widely quoted warning referred only to this specific claim regarding the real estate development and was not meant as a generalized description of Mr. Gore's lack of truthfulness. "I think this whole flurry about Gore's exaggerations is exaggerated," Mr. Schardt said. But other statements by Mr. Gore -- including those made during recent debates with Mr. Bradley -- raise more serious questions about his veracity and have had a direct impact on the current campaign. In a debate sponsored by Iowa Public Television in January, Mr. Gore asked Chris Peterson, whose farm had been inundated in the floods of 1993, to stand and be recognized. Turning to Mr. Bradley, Mr. Gore said, "Why did you vote against the disaster relief for Chris Peterson when he and thousands of other farmers here in Iowa needed it after those '93 floods?" Mr. Bradley, clearly thrown off balance, turned aside Mr. Gore's question and changed the subject. Mr. Gore repeated the charge in a television commercial that began airing within days of the debate. But Mr. Gore's accusation was false and unfair. Mr. Bradley supported the 1993 legislation that provided $4.8 billion in emergency flood relief for farmers like Mr. Peterson. What Mr. Bradley and 31 other senators opposed was an amendment that would have provided an additional $900 million in disaster compensation. The Clinton Administration also opposed the amendment until literally minutes before floor debate ended. Mr. Bradley's weak response to Mr. Gore's misleading charge has haunted him to this day. "Our polls show the Bradley collapse began the day after the Jan. 9 debate," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication. "You could argue that Gore built his Iowa victory on a significant deception." Mr. Gore has also misrepresented Mr. Bradley's health care plan, charging in various appearances that it would provide a voucher worth only $150 a month for a family to purchase medical insurance on the private market. In fact, the Bradley plan would grant each individual $150 a month and provides other mechanisms for poor families to receive health care. "That was a serious misstatement," Ms. Jamieson said. "At least he's stopped doing it." But Mr. Gore continues to claim that Mr. Bradley's health proposal would adversely affect blacks, Latinos and people living with HIV or AIDS. This accusation infuriates Mr. Bradley because it appears specifically designed to cut into his support among minorities and gays and lesbians. But Mr. Gore repeated the charge in the interview Tuesday night. "There is a tendency on the part of Senator Bradley to interpret any disagreement with his position as an untruthful statement," the vice president said. "For example, he became visibly apoplectic yesterday in arguing that it was a bald-faced lie to say that people with HIV/AIDS had experienced difficulty in obtaining private health insurance that would cover their medical expenses." "Well, excuse me, but that's not an untruthful statement," Mr. Gore added. "It is evidence rather that Senator Bradley has made a catastrophically poor political and substantive policy judgment in designing a health-care proposal that is disintegrating in front of his eyes." In the interview, Mr. Gore acknowledged one incident recently in which he uttered a false statement, although he preferred to call it a "mistake." Last November, Mr. Gore said that he supported the sweeping campaign finance proposal written by Senators John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin. "Unlike Senator Bradley," Mr. Gore boasted, "I was a co-sponsor of it." In fact, Mr. Feingold took office in January 1993, the same month Mr. Gore left the Senate to become vice president. The two never served together. "That was a mistake," Mr. Gore said Tuesday. "That wasn't -- what I meant to say was that I supported that." Questions about Mr. Gore's veracity are compounded by his service to a president whose own honesty has been assailed. "The problem for Gore," said John G. Geer, professor of American politics at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, "is that he's Clinton's vice president and Clinton is perceived as the master of this kind of campaign. His overstatements are magnified because he's been carrying Clinton's baggage for seven years." Mr. Clinton came to his vice president's defense in a news conference today. Responding to a question about Mr. Gore's credibility, Mr. Clinton said the vice president had always been "brutally honest" with him. "I have never seen a tough race where people fought with each other where they didn't have different interpretations of each other's record and each other's positions," Mr. Clinton said. nytimes.com

To: lawdog who wrote (56889)	11/2/2000 3:39:17 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Gore's Press Problem By Mickey Kaus Posted Monday, Jan. 31, 2000, at 11:19 a.m. PT Kausfiles' previous item charged that the press was boosting Bradley because reporters didn't want the primary race to end. But that item was written from Washington, D.C. Kausfiles is now on the spot, in New Hampshire, site of the first-in-the-nation presidential primary and press gangbang. By pursuing a strategy of "investigative drinking" at the bar of the Wayfarer Inn in Bedford, our crack team of reporters is now able to add context and perspective to our earlier reports, and to the seeming Bradley surge over the primary's final weekend. Executive summary: The previous item was only half the story. What I underestimated--what, indeed, has startled me--is the extent to which reporters aren't simply boosting Bradley for their own sake (or Bradley's). It's also something else: They hate Gore. They really do think he's a liar. And a phony. They dislike the controlled, canned nature of his campaign events, and hate covering them. They do not admire Gore's transformation from bad wooden politician to newly-energized attack machine as much as their stories about it may suggest. Rather, they see Gore as a bully, and a hypocritical one at that, bellowing about Bradley's negativity when the New Jersey senator finally brings up some fairly obvious Gore vulnerabilities. It may be true, as Joe Battenfeld writes in today's Boston Herald, that "Bradley's new attacks questioning Gore's truthfulness on abortion are really designed to raise the ghosts of Monica Lewinsky, Buddhist fund-raising and other White House scandals to taint the vice president." But for the press, Bradley's attacks questioning Gore's truthfulness are less clever. They raise mainly the question of Gore's truthfulness. And reporters eat them up ... All this makes Newsweek writer Bill Turque's allegations regarding Gore's youthful marijuana experimentation much more relevant. The issue isn't Gore's drug use (an area where reporters are generationally inclined to cut Gore a lot of slack) but whether Gore told the truth, or used bullying tactics to cover up the truth. ... (So far, with Turque's story being held by Newsweek, evidence of real bullying is fairly weak. Gore's ex-stoner buddy, John Warnecke, says the vice president and Tipper called him and asked him not to blab to the press. When he refused, they hung up! How mafia-like can you get! Clinton would at least have gotten the guy a job in Hollywood ... See Matthew Rees' Warnecke story in this week's Weekly Standard.) Memo to Bob Shrum: You didn't take kausfiles' advice, you fool! Instead of using TV ads in New Hampshire to draw a contrast between your candidate (Gore) and Bradley on an issue of substance in which Gore has the upper hand (welfare reform), your campaign sat in its lead. In the final weekend before the New Hampshire primary, you can't sit on a lead! I suppose the idea was to carry out the strategy of trapping Bradley in the much-ballyhooed "box"--if he didn't respond to your attacks, the theory went, he'd lose; if he responded to your attacks with attacks of his own, he'd contradict his self-proclaimed image of being above such things, and look desperate to boot. Well, egged on by the press, Bradley's now attacking you--and, guess what, he seems to be getting some traction. Gore has been noisily denouncing Bradley's "manipulative, negative" tactics, as planned. But the box ain't closing, at least from where I sit. Instead, it's Gore who looks desperate and hypocritical, while Bradley looks like the John Wayne character who has established his essential goodness in the first reel but finally can't take it anymore and in the second reel socks the bad guy in the jaw. Maybe Bradley's comeback is too little, too late [insert Super Bowl analogy here]. Only time will tell! But it wasn't necessary to let him come back at all. slate.msn.com.

To: lawdog who wrote (56889)	11/2/2000 3:40:13 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Gore Lies Repeatedly, Bradley Says E-Mail This Article Printer-Friendly Version By Mike Allen Washington Post Staff Writer Friday , December 3, 1999 ; Page A01 Bill Bradley angrily accused Vice President Gore yesterday of repeatedly lying about his record and intentions, but said he did not believe he had been hurt by their increasingly harsh debate over health care. "I think we've reached a sad day in our political life in this country when a sitting vice president distorts a fellow Democrat's record because he thinks he can score a few political points," Bradley said. Bradley's attack, which came during an appeal to black legislators meeting in Baltimore, appeared to be part of an effort to regain ground he has lost in polls since his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination began arguing that Bradley's health care plan is too expensive and would hurt more people than it would help. Besides Bradley's blasts from the stump, which have escalated by the day, his once-thrifty campaign has begun to far outspend Gore on television ads in New Hampshire. Several key supporters said privately that they fear Bradley blew his lead of early fall by retaining his gentlemanly forbearance too long. But in an interview yesterday at The Washington Post that ranged from foreign policy and race relations to the problems of the poor, Bradley said he did not believe Gore had wounded him permanently. "I haven't seen any real evidence that the static is making a difference in people's receptivity," he said. "We don't have momentum ? we have a little traction. You want momentum in January, February and March ? not now." With the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary less than two months away, Bradley said he still had time to make his case. "It's a big country," he said. "It's very difficult to attack something that nobody knows exists. If he just simply goes out there and says Bradley wants to hurt African Americans and Latinos with health care ? that's what he said ? that's a fairly easy thing to refute." In Iowa, Gore said during a satellite interview with New York television stations, "I haven't attacked him and will not attack him. I have discussed the issues and I'll continue to do that, whether it makes him sad or happy." In the meeting at The Post, Bradley said Gore's criticisms "deal with small elements of a larger picture." "Every other day there's an attack ? some I'll refute; some I won't," he said. "When he hits it across and it's something outrageous, then I'll hit back." He said he would not be "diverted from the positive vision that I want to portray," and vowed to ignore "your ordinary, everyday attack." Bradley's program would replace Medicaid, which serves the poorest Americans, with free or low-cost care in other private or public health insurance plans. "I've been attacked for trying to make Medicaid better," Bradley said. "The idea is to try to think about this more thoroughly. If we can't do better than what we're doing for poor people in Medicaid today, then we're in trouble." Earlier yesterday, Bradley spoke to the annual meting of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, a day after Gore used an address to the same group to say Bradley's platform would undermine Medicare and Social Security. Bradley began his response by saying, "I heard he gave a pretty good speech." Then he unloaded. "But I'm afraid he didn't tell you the whole truth about my record ? or even half of it," Bradley began. "He said that I proposed raising the eligibility age of Social Security. Not true ? he knows it's not true. He suggested I'd cut Social Security benefits and increase Social Security taxes. Not true ? he knows it's not true." On other matters, in the interview at The Post, Bradley said: He is willing to raise taxes to pay for his health care plan, although he first would seek to "close a lot of loopholes" in the tax system and "cut out some subsidies, such as the mining industry." Bradley acknowledged that such savings would not cover the cost of his plan, which he estimates at $55 billion to $65 billion each year. "But it would be a chunk of it," he said. "Then you have to see where your revenues were and make your decision then as to whether, if you didn't have enough, what you were going to do ? cutting spending or increasing taxes. But the commitment I've made is to do this." He believes the expansion of NATO was a mistake, in part because it had "certainly alienated a large segment of the Russian elites." He said he would be "extremely cautious" about the addition of any more countries, "given the volatility in Russia." "I think that it was a decision taken in a conceptual vacuum at the end of the Cold War, when people were trying to figure out, well, what is NATO going to do next," he said. He said he would not support an income tax cut in the current economic climate, but added, "If we got into a downturn, I could see an argument for a counter-cyclical tax cut." He would not favor deploying a missile defense shield, which would require modification, or a breach, of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Bradley said that by the time President Clinton faces that decision next summer, not enough tests will have been done to know whether "it actually works." "I'd want to talk to more people, but my sense is that I would not go with deployment based on three tests," Bradley said. He had given no consideration to pushing to reopen the two-block section of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House that was closed in 1995 to deter bombers. "Is it closed?" Bradley asked. "Look, if I can convince the Secret Service that I don't need them and I can get out occasionally on my own and drive a car, which is going to be the greatest personal deprivation of being president of the United States, I might even challenge them on Pennsylvania Avenue." washingtonpost.com

To: lawdog who wrote (56889)	11/2/2000 3:41:59 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

National Review Online 10/04/00 5:00 p.m. Fire Lie Yet another from the debate. "There has never been a time in this campaign when I have said something that I know to be untrue." — Vice President Al Gore, January 26, 2000 By now, pretty much everyone recognizes that Vice President Gore has a problem with the truth. So we decided to perform our own assessment of Gore's veracity, and came up with a list of lies, originally published in the May 22, 2000 issue of NR. But, be warned: This is not a static list. As more Gore Lies pop up, we will out them here — so check back often. New Lie! ALL R&D October 17; third presidential debate, St. Louis CLAIM: “The big drug companies…are now spending more money on advertising and promotion — you see all these ads — than they are on research and development.” TRUTH: The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation reported in July that drug companies spent between $5.8 billion and $8.3 billion on marketing and $21 billion on research in 1998, according to CBS News. — by John J. Miller FIRE LIE October 3, 2000; First presidential debate, Boston, Mass. CLAIM: “I accompanied James Lee Witt down to Texas when those fires broke out [in Parker County].” TRUTH: FEMA spokeswoman Mary Margaret Walker told NR: “During the fires in Parker County, Texas, the vice president participated in a roundtable about the fires with FEMA's regional director. . . . He was not with Mr. Witt at that time.” Gore admitted as much on ABC's Good Morning America: “I've made so many trips with James Lee to these disaster sites. I was there in Texas, in Houston, with the head of the Texas emergency management folks and with the federal emergency management folks. If James Lee was there before or after, then, you know, I got that wrong then.” — by John J. Miller & Kathryn Jean Lopez THE GIRL WITHOUT A SEAT October 3, 2000; First presidential debate, Boston, Mass. CLAIM: “I'd like to tell you a quick story. I got a letter today, as I left Sarasota, Florida. I'm here with a group of 13 people from around the country who helped me prepare and we had a great time. But two days ago we ate lunch at a restaurant and the guy who served us lunch sent — got me a letter today. His name is Randy Ellis, he has a 15-year-old daughter named Kailey, who's in Sarasota High School. Her science class was supposed to be for 24 students. She is the 36th student in that classroom, sent me a picture of her in the classroom. They can't squeeze another desk in for her, so she has to stand during class.” October 4, A.M. Tampa Bay, 970AM WFLA TRUTH: Dan Kennedy, principal of Sarasota High School: "I think the facts that he was provided with were inaccurate because we don't really have any students standing in class, and we have more than enough desks for all of our students. . . .[What Gore was referring to] was probably one of the first days of school when we were in a process of leveling classes. [Kailey] did have an opportunity to use a lab stool, which was also available in the classroom. But we were refurbishing that classroom, and in the back of that picture, if you look carefully, you can see probably about $100,000 worth of new lab equipment that was waiting to be unpacked, which is one of the reasons the room looked as crowded as it did. The teacher did not notify us that he needed another desk. Had we known, we would have put one in there immediately.” — by Kathryn Jean Lopez BUSH'S EXPERIENCE October 3, 2000; First presidential debate, Boston, Mass. CLAIM: “I have actually not questioned Governor Bush's experience.” TRUTH: In an interview printed by the New York Times on March 12, Gore said: “You have to wonder whether [Bush] has the experience to be president. I mean, you really have to wonder. ... You have to wonder: Does Governor Bush have the experience to be president? ... Again you have to wonder: Does George Bush have the experience to be president?” — by John J. Miller SLICK GORE Washington Post, Sept. 24 CLAIM: At Sept. 22 press conference, Gore says, “I've been a part of the discussions on the strategic reserve since the days when it was first established.” TRUTH: President Ford established the Strategic Petroleum Reserves when he signed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) on December 22, 1975 — two years before Al Gore became a congressman. OFF KEY USA Today, Sept. 19 CLAIM: Addressing a Teamsters meeting, Gore spoke of lullabies from his youth and sang, "Look for the union label." TRUTH: The song was written in 1975, when Gore was 27. ARTHRITIS PAIN Sept. 20, 2000; Associated Press CLAIM: The vice president told Florida senior citizens in an Aug. 28 speech that his mother-in-law pays $108 a month for the same arthritis medicine he gives his dog for $37.80 a month. TRUTH: The figures he used were taken from a House Democratic study and did not reflect his family's own costs. Moreover, the study's figures referred to wholesale prices, not prices paid by the consumer. DEBATING BUSH July 16, 2000; NBC'S Meet the Press CLAIM: "I've accepted for two or three months now your invitation to debate on this program," said Gore on NBC's Meet the Press. "How are you going to persuade [Bush] to say yes, Tim?" Tim Russert: "Well, maybe you're helping today." Gore: "Well, do you think so? But what kind of approach — can you get Jack Welch involved?" TRUTH: On the Today show on September 4, Gore refused to make good on this pledge. Matt Lauer: "I do want to remind you that back in July, you had already agreed to the Meet the Press debate with Tim Russert." Gore: "Sure." Lauer: "Why now reject it?" Gore: "I still agree to it. But first, let's do the commissioned debates." SOFT MONEY March 15, 2000; CNN CLAIM: "What I did yesterday was to call on the Democratic National Committee—and they'll comply with this—to not spend any of the so-called soft money on these issue ads unless and until the Republican Party does." TRUTH: "The Democratic National Committee announced a $25 million summer ad campaign, paid for with soft money. The Republicans, so far, have not bought ads with soft money for Bush." (for full story, click here.) TEXAS GOVERNOR May 2, 2000; Washington Post CLAIM: "You know [Bush] has never put together a budget. The governor of Texas is by far the weakest chief executive position in America and does not have the responsibility of forming or presenting a budget. He's never done that." TRUTH: Texas law defines the governor as "the chief budget officer of the state" and orders him to distribute his budget to every member of the legislature. And Bush, in fact, has formed and presented budgets as governor. BUSH CRIME RECORD May 2, 2000; Atlanta YWCA speech CLAIM: "Under Bush, Texas' recidivism rate has increased by 25 percent." TRUTH: Nobody knows what has happened to the recidivism rate under Bush because those figures haven't been published, due to extensive lag times in reporting. The most recent numbers are from 1994, according to the Texas Criminal Justice Policy Council. BUSH DEBT PLAN April 25, 2000; Association for a Better New York speech CLAIM: "He provides for no reduction in the debt — and no reduction in interest on the debt." TRUTH: By promising to reserve excess revenues generated by Social Security payroll taxes for Social Security, Bush essentially promises to retire federal debt with this money. BUDGET SURPLUS May 2, 2000; Washington Post CLAIM: Describing the Clinton administration plan outlined in the 1999 State of the Union address to have the federal government invest some of the budget surplus in the stock market: "We didn't really propose it. We talked about the idea." TRUTH: Page 37 of the Clinton administration budget submitted to Congress in February: "The President also proposes to invest half of the transferred amounts in corporate equities." From last year's budget: "The administration proposes tapping the power of private financial markets to increase the resources to pay for future Social Security benefits." TOBACCO #1 March 1, 2000; San Jose Mercury News CLAIM: “It’s not fair to say, ‘Okay, after his sister died, he continued in the same relationship with the tobacco industry.’ I did not. I did not. I began to confront them forcefully. I don’t see the inconsistency there.” TRUTH: The same month Gore’s sister died in 1984, he received a $1,000 speaking fee from U.S. Tobacco. The next year, he voted against cigarette and tobacco tax increases three times and favored a bill allowing major cigarette makers to purchase discounted tobacco. In the 1988 campaign, Gore bragged of his tobacco background: “I want you to know that with my own hands, all of my life, I put [tobacco] in the plant beds and transferred it. I’ve hoed it, I’ve dug in it, I’ve sprayed it, I’ve chopped it, I’ve shredded it, spiked it, put it in the barn, and stripped it and sold it” (Newsday, 2-26-88). TOBACCO #2 March 1, 2000; San Jose Mercury News CLAIM: “My family had grown tobacco. It was never actually grown on my farm, but it was on my father’s farm.” TRUTH: Gore had already admitted growing tobacco on his own farm: “On my farm, we stopped growing tobacco some time after Nancy died” (Cox News Service, 4-26-99). Also, Gore received federal subsidies for growing tobacco on his farm (Wall Street Journal, 8-10-95). ABORTION #1 February 20, 2000; New York Times CLAIM: Gore said he has “always, always, always” supported Roe v. Wade. TRUTH: In 1977, Rep. Gore voted for the Hyde Amendment, which says that abortion “takes the life of an unborn child who is a living human being,” and that there is no constitutional right to abortion. He cast many other votes favorable to the pro-life cause and earned an 84 percent rating from the National Right to Life Committee. CROWD ESTIMATE February 4, 2000; New York Times CLAIM: “We had a huge event with 3,000 people at Ohio State University.” TRUTH: “Officials at that rally said the room where it had taken place did not hold more than 1,200 people, and, given the area needed for the staging erected for the occasion, they estimated the crowd at 500,” reported the Times. NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY February 2, 2000; Good Morning America CLAIM: “We won in every single demographic category” in the New Hampshire primary. TRUTH: Bill Bradley carried male voters and voters aged 18-29, according to exit polls. BRADLEY VOTING RECORD January 8, 2000; Democratic debate in Iowa CLAIM: “Why did you [Bill Bradley] vote against the disaster relief for Chris Peterson when he and thousands of other farmers here in Iowa needed it after those ’93 floods?” TRUTH: Bradley voted for $4.8 billion in flood aid and opposed an amendment, also opposed by the Clinton White House until the last minute, to add $900 million in disaster compensation. HUBERT HUMPHREY December 27, 1999; Washington Post CLAIM: Gore has suggested that he contributed important lines to Hubert Humphrey’s acceptance speech at the 1968 Democratic convention. “Young Gore later often told the story . . . [A]s [he] sat in the convention hall and looked up at Humphrey in the spotlight, he thought he heard his own words coming back to him.” TRUTH: When Gore’s supposed conduit to Humphrey denied the influence, Gore blamed his recollection on “Faulty memory. Faulty memory.” RESIDENCE December 23, 1999; ABCNews.com CLAIM: “I live on a farm today. I have my heart in my own farm.” TRUTH: Gore lives in the vice-presidential mansion at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. After making this farm claim, Gore said: “Yes, I live in Washington, D.C., when I’m working there”! INTERNET PROTECTION December 17, 1999; Democratic debate on Nightline CLAIM: “I helped to negotiate an agreement with the Internet service providers to put a parent-protection page up and give parents the ability to click on all the websites that their children have visited lately. That’ll put a lot of bargaining leverage in the hands of parents.” TRUTH: Bartlett Cleland of the Internet Education Foundation, seven months earlier: “There was no Gore involvement. They hijacked this issue. He makes it sound like he led the project. I can’t imagine what he will invent tomorrow” (Washington Times, 5-6-99). LOVE CANAL December 1, 1999; Concord High School, Concord, N.H. CLAIM: “I found a little place in upstate New York called Love Canal. I had the first hearing on that issue.” TRUTH: In October 1978, Gore did hold congressional hearings on Love Canal — which he apparently “found” two months after President Carter declared it a disaster area and the federal government offered to buy the homes. HOME BUILDER November 30, 1999; New England Business Council, Manchester, N.H. CLAIM: “I was a home builder after I came back from Viet-nam. . . . I know a good bit about how to make money that way. . . . To build this country is a great thing.” TRUTH: A Gore family corporation, Tanglewood Home builders, built nine houses between 1969 and 1973 on property once owned by Gore’s father. “I believe he [Al Gore Jr.] came by a time or two, but not too often,” Jewell Dillehay, the contractor for the development, told the Orange County Register on February 20, 1988. MCCAIN-FEINGOLD CAMPAIGN-FINANCE BILL November 24, 1999; New York Times CLAIM: “Unlike Senator Bradley, I was a co-sponsor of it.” TRUTH: Gore and Russell Feingold never served together in the Senate. Gore later admitted to the Times that his comment “was a mistake . . . [W]hat I meant to say was that I supported that.” EITC November 1, 1999; Time interview CLAIM: “I was the author of that proposal [the Earned Income Tax Credit]. I wrote that, so I say [to Bill Bradley], Welcome aboard. That is something for which I have been the principal proponent for a long time.” TRUTH: The original EITC law was enacted in 1975. Gore entered Congress in 1977. STIFF AND WOODEN October 23, 1999; Associated Press CLAIM: “I never got that stiff-and-wooden rap in the House and Senate. It has been as vice president.” TRUTH: Time, March 21, 1988: “A joke among the press corps is, How do you tell Al Gore from his Secret Service protection? Answer: He’s the stiff one.” VIETNAM SERVICE October 15, 1999; Los Angeles Times CLAIM: “I carried an M-16. . . . I pulled my turn on the perimeter at night and walked through the elephant grass, and I was fired upon.” In 1988, Gore told the Washington Post: “I was shot at. . . . I spent most of my time in the field.” TRUTH: Gore never faced direct enemy fire, although several times he may have arrived on the scene shortly after fighting was completed. TEST-BAN TREATY October 14, 1999; Gore ad CLAIM: “I ask for your support, and your mandate if elected president, to send this treaty back to the Senate with your demand that they ratify it. I’ve worked on this for 20 years because, unless we get this one right, nothing else matters.” TRUTH: Gore indeed “worked on” this matter for many years, but often in opposition to a test ban. During his presidential campaign in 1988, he criticized his Democratic primary opponents for “the very idea of having a complete ban on all flight-testing of missiles when we rely on deterrence for the survival of our civilization” (Washington Post, 2-22-88). INTERNET March 9, 1999; CNN interview CLAIM: “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.” TRUTH: The Internet is an outgrowth of a Pentagon program established in 1969. In the 1980s, Gore supported legislation considered favorable to the Internet’s development. CENSUS July 16, 1998; NAACP annual convention CLAIM: “The Republicans know theirs is the wrong agenda for African Americans. They don’t even want to count you in the census!” TRUTH: Most Republicans opposed the Clinton administration’s plan to conduct the census by statistically sampling the population rather than actually trying to count everybody. BUDDHIST TEMPLE January 24, 1997; Today show CLAIM: “I did not know that it was a fundraiser.” TRUTH: A DNC memo prepared for Gore made plain that the event at Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights, Calif., was a fundraiser. A Secret Service document called it a fundraiser, Gore’s staff described the event as a fundraiser to reporters, and DNC chairman Don Fowler testified to the Senate that he knew “there was a fundraising aspect to this event.” Six weeks before attending the event, Gore met with temple master Hsing Yun at the White House with fundraisers Maria Hsia and John Huang. Later that day, Gore sent an e-mail saying that he couldn’t be in New York on April 28, 1996: “If we have already booked the fundraisers [in California], then we have to decline.” ABORTION #2 January 22, 1997; NARAL meeting CLAIM: “I reached out to individuals who are leaders on the [pro-life] side of this issue” to “make common cause” on reducing unwanted pregnancies. He went on to imply that Catholic pro-lifers’ opposition to birth control made it impossible for both sides join “together to make abortions rare.” TRUTH: Despite many queries, no pro-life leader has ever said Gore approached him on this subject. PEACE CORPS February 16, 1992; C-SPAN’s Booknotes CLAIM: Gore said his sister was “the very first volunteer for the Peace Corps.” TRUTH: Nancy Gore Hunger was a paid employee at Peace Corps headquarters, 1961-64. SUPERFUND April 16, 1988; Democratic debate in New York CLAIM: “I have written the law, along with one other principal author of the Superfund law, and amendments to the other major law in this area, which requires that companies improperly disposing of hazardous waste must bear the financial consequences of cleaning it up.” TRUTH: Rep. Jim Florio, Democrat of New Jersey, wrote the first Superfund law in 1980. Gore was not a coauthor but merely one of 42 cosponsors in the House. Eight years before claiming authorship and praising the Superfund law, Gore criticized it for being “far too small to make a reasonable start on correcting this enormous environmental problem” (Congressional Record, 5-16-80). HOMETOWN February 1988; two ads CLAIM: “I’m Al Gore. I grew up on a farm,” and “growing up in Carthage, Tennessee, I learned our bedrock values . . .” TRUTH: Gore, the son of a senator, grew up primarily at the Fairfax Hotel in Washington, D.C., in a suite of rooms overlooking Embassy Row. He graduated from the ritzy St. Albans National Cathedral School, also in the capital. SCHOOL DAYS 1988 campaign video CLAIM: Narrator calls him a “brilliant student.” TRUTH: “His grades were uneven, never approaching the plateau of A’s and B’s that might be expected of one who possesses such a pedagogical demeanor,” reported the Washington Post (3-19-00). MUSIC LYRICS November 3, 1987; Variety CLAIM: “I was not in favor of the hearing” on music lyrics. TRUTH: At the Senate Commerce Committee hearing on September 19, 1985, Gore said: “Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank you and commend you for calling this hearing. Because my wife has been heavily involved in the evolution of this issue, I have gained quite a bit of familiarity with it, and I have really gained an education in what is involved.” INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER September 27, 1987; Des Moines Register CLAIM: Gore claimed he “got a bunch of people indicted and sent to jail” as a reporter in the 1970s. TRUTH: Two city councilmen were indicted; one was acquitted and the other given a suspended sentence. In an interview with the Memphis Commercial Appeal (10-3-87) a few days later, Gore admitted to “a careless statement that was unintentional.” FEMALE STAFFERS August 22, 1987; Associated Press CLAIM: Gore “said half his campaign staff were women, and he would make half of a Gore Cabinet women.” TRUTH: “But pressed by reporters later to name women on his staff, he fumbled and then mentioned one name, which later turned out to be incorrect.” ARMS CONTROL 1984 Senate ad CLAIM: Narrator says Gore “wrote the bipartisan plan on arms control that U.S. negotiators will take to the Russians.” TRUTH: Ken Adelman, director of U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency: “He had nothing to do with what we proposed to the Soviets” (Boston Globe, 4-11-00). nationalreview.com

To: lawdog who wrote (56889)	11/2/2000 3:43:06 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Fort Worth Star Telegram: July 21, 2000 By: Bill Thompson Al Gore wants to succeed Bill Clinton as commander in chief, but his rhetoric suggests that the vice president's main goal is to replace Slick Willie as the nation's liar in chief. Gore showed up in Texas yesterday to disseminate his latest pack of distortions, deceptions and flat-out falsehoods about George W. Bush, who just happens to be governor of the Lone Star State. Topping Gore's list of whoppers was his outrageous claim that Bush "made his top priority a large tax cut for special interests." Bush's priorities as governor have included any number of important programs designed to benefit all the people of Texas, but his "top priority" was providing tax relief to the state's overburdened homeowners. To that end, Bush engineered a $1 billion reduction in property taxes -- the largest such cut in the state's history. Do you suppose that Gore views hard-working Texas taxpayers as "special interests"? Sure he does. We know this because Clinton and Gore fight tooth and nail to defeat every proposal for universal tax relief that comes down the pike. The only tax cuts you'll ever see these guys support are those that are "targeted" to benefit narrowly defined, politically favored categories of taxpayers. When the vice president bemoans the Bush tax cut, Gore is complaining about tax cuts for just plain folks. So Gore travels to Bush's home state to misrepresent the governor's tax agenda. And while he's at it, Gore claims that Bush has squandered the state's budget surplus, which may or may not be as large as originally projected. Fact No. 1: If giving part of a government budget surplus back to the people who earned the money in the first place is "squandering" the surplus, then we need far more public officials who are willing to squander. Fact No. 2: The allegedly diminishing surplus could actually turn out to be slightly `larger' than previous estimates, according to Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Rylander. It's hard to imagine that Gore doesn't know the truth -- and if he knows, then he is indeed making an energetic grab for that "liar in chief" title. If he isn't lying, of course, we must assume that he is afflicted with a reckless proclivity for making unsubstantiated allegations against his opponent -- which casts serious doubt upon his fitness to serve as America's top elected official. Anyone who is looking for a clue regarding the level of honesty in Gore's latest attacks on Bush might want to consider the fundamental contradiction in his criticism. In addition to ripping Bush for supposedly squandering the state's surplus, Gore has been blasting the state for failing to pour enough money into social programs. So what's the deal? Is Texas spending too much or not spending enough? One more fact: One of the unexpected drains on the state's finances is higher-than-predicted expenditures for Medicaid, a massive entitlement program that provides health care for the poor. Shame on Bush and the state of Texas for squandering the budget surplus on Medicaid recipients. Those "special interests" are insatiable, aren't they? The Associated Press reported that "Rylander and Texas legislative leaders from both parties offered to meet Gore in San Antonio and `brief him on the facts.' " Gore said no thanks. Here's what the Bush campaign said: "Al Gore confirmed today that he is not interested in the truth, but merely interested in political games. Gore refused to meet with a bipartisan group of Texas budget experts to discuss the surplus in Texas, and is coming under fire from Texas Democrats who want Al Gore to quit portraying Texas unfairly." The campaign quoted Democratic state Rep. Henry Cuellar of Laredo as saying that Gore's criticism of the state's fiscal policies amounted to an attack on the Texas Legislature. Actually, it amounted to an attack on Texans in general. Lucky for us, Texas voters get to retaliate on Nov. 7. July 21, 2000 By: Bill Thompson Al Gore wants to succeed Bill Clinton as commander in chief, but his rhetoric suggests that the vice president's main goal is to replace Slick Willie as the nation's liar in chief. Gore showed up in Texas yesterday to disseminate his latest pack of distortions, deceptions and flat-out falsehoods about George W. Bush, who just happens to be governor of the Lone Star State. Topping Gore's list of whoppers was his outrageous claim that Bush "made his top priority a large tax cut for special interests." Bush's priorities as governor have included any number of important programs designed to benefit all the people of Texas, but his "top priority" was providing tax relief to the state's overburdened homeowners. To that end, Bush engineered a $1 billion reduction in property taxes -- the largest such cut in the state's history. Do you suppose that Gore views hard-working Texas taxpayers as "special interests"? Sure he does. We know this because Clinton and Gore fight tooth and nail to defeat every proposal for universal tax relief that comes down the pike. The only tax cuts you'll ever see these guys support are those that are "targeted" to benefit narrowly defined, politically favored categories of taxpayers. When the vice president bemoans the Bush tax cut, Gore is complaining about tax cuts for just plain folks. So Gore travels to Bush's home state to misrepresent the governor's tax agenda. And while he's at it, Gore claims that Bush has squandered the state's budget surplus, which may or may not be as large as originally projected. Fact No. 1: If giving part of a government budget surplus back to the people who earned the money in the first place is "squandering" the surplus, then we need far more public officials who are willing to squander. Fact No. 2: The allegedly diminishing surplus could actually turn out to be slightly `larger' than previous estimates, according to Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Rylander. It's hard to imagine that Gore doesn't know the truth -- and if he knows, then he is indeed making an energetic grab for that "liar in chief" title. If he isn't lying, of course, we must assume that he is afflicted with a reckless proclivity for making unsubstantiated allegations against his opponent -- which casts serious doubt upon his fitness to serve as America's top elected official. Anyone who is looking for a clue regarding the level of honesty in Gore's latest attacks on Bush might want to consider the fundamental contradiction in his criticism. In addition to ripping Bush for supposedly squandering the state's surplus, Gore has been blasting the state for failing to pour enough money into social programs. So what's the deal? Is Texas spending too much or not spending enough? One more fact: One of the unexpected drains on the state's finances is higher-than-predicted expenditures for Medicaid, a massive entitlement program that provides health care for the poor. Shame on Bush and the state of Texas for squandering the budget surplus on Medicaid recipients. Those "special interests" are insatiable, aren't they? The Associated Press reported that "Rylander and Texas legislative leaders from both parties offered to meet Gore in San Antonio and `brief him on the facts.' " Gore said no thanks. Here's what the Bush campaign said: "Al Gore confirmed today that he is not interested in the truth, but merely interested in political games. Gore refused to meet with a bipartisan group of Texas budget experts to discuss the surplus in Texas, and is coming under fire from Texas Democrats who want Al Gore to quit portraying Texas unfairly." The campaign quoted Democratic state Rep. Henry Cuellar of Laredo as saying that Gore's criticism of the state's fiscal policies amounted to an attack on the Texas Legislature. Actually, it amounted to an attack on Texans in general. Lucky for us, Texas voters get to retaliate on Nov. 7. hereliesalgore.com

To: lawdog who wrote (56889)	11/2/2000 3:44:31 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

The Boston Globe: 4/11/2000 Author: Walter V. Robinson and Michael Crowley Vice President Al Gore brings a remarkable life story to the presidential race By Gore's account: His father was such an unwavering supporter of civil rights that it cost him his Senate seat. His older sister was the first-ever volunteer in the Peace Corps, that heroic outpost on President Kennedy's New Frontier. He was raised in hardscrabble Tennessee farm country. He was a brilliant student, in high school and at Harvard. And despite his political pull, he received no special treatment, opting instead to go to Vietnam where he was ''shot at.'' After his Army service, he spent seven years as a journalist, and his reporting at the Tennessean in Nashville put corrupt officials in prison. As a junior member in the US House, he was a major force: He wrote and then spearheaded passage of the Superfund law. He even authored the US nuclear negotiating position. And at a time when President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev faced off on the superpower stage, Gore had his own meeting with Gorbachev. And, of course, he created the Internet. At various times in his political career, Gore, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has said all those things about himself and his family. None are quite true. Earlier fears that Gore would be hobbled by President Clinton's character failings have abated. Now, it is Gore's credibility that could become an issue. Behind the scenes, according to sources, top campaign aides have met to consider the issue's potential for damaging Gore's candidacy. His Republican opponent, Texas Governor Bush, has already telegraphed his plans to attack Gore's believability. Gore's recent campaign rhetoric has invited scrutiny of his sometimes freewheeling treatment of facts. Several times, he misstated his own record and that of his Democratic opponent, former senator Bill Bradley. In Iowa, Gore's misleading claim that Bradley voted against disaster relief for the flood-stricken state dealt a serious blow to Bradley's insurgent candidacy. ''Why should we believe that you will tell the truth as president if you don't tell the truth as a candidate?'' Bradley asked Gore at a debate in New Hampshire. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School of Communications, said she is troubled that Gore sometimes continues to use exaggerated or inaccurate claims even in the face of public evidence that he is wrong. ''You wonder if it's a failure to listen or an impulse to deceive,'' said Jamieson, who monitors the accuracy of political statements. ''The question is, is there a basic personality flaw there that will make it more difficult for him to be president? Is there a tendency to exaggerate? Is there a tendency to reconstruct the past? When you start counting on the fingers of both hands you start to say maybe there's a pattern here.'' Douglas Hattaway, a campaign spokesman, said Gore could not be interviewed on the issue. More recent Gore claims make it clear that the predilection persists. In announcing his candidacy last June, Gore praised his father's courage on civil rights but sidestepped an obvious contradiction: The elder Gore strongly opposed the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act. And his sister was a salaried midlevel political appointee at Peace Corps headquarters, and not, as Gore has said on a couple of occasions, a ''volunteer,'' the label reserved for those who serve overseas. Dukakis responds In the 1988 presidential primary campaign, then-Massachusetts Governor Michael S. Dukakis, needled once too often by Gore, upbraided him during a debate: ''Please get your facts straight. If you want to be president of the United States, you better start by being accurate.'' Another candidate, former Senator Paul Simon, scolded Gore during another debate for making ''sweeping charges.'' In recent interviews, Simon and Dukakis were reluctant to discuss their scrapes with the man who is now their party's standard bearer. But Simon said Gore's rhetorical excesses that year ''could accurately be described as brashness, which obviously didn't get him anywhere. ... It was a combination of youth and inexperience.'' But what raised the most eyebrows in 1988 was not what Gore said about his opponents. It was his inclination, during his first audition on a national stage, to add lustrous detail to his own resume. Many of the embellishments were unearthed at the time, but attracted little attention because Gore's 1988 campaign proved a hapless effort. The aides in 1988 who warned Gore about sticking to the facts had plenty to worry about: Gore's claim that he grew up in Carthage, Tenn., when he was reared in a Washington hotel suite; his exaggeration of his farming background; his statements, later debunked, that he had been under fire in Vietnam and that his investigative reporting at the Tennessean in Nashville in the 1970s had sent people to jail; his claim to have been schooled in rural Tennessee and urban Washington, when he was educated at an elite private school in the capital; and his insistence that he had been a homebuilder and small businessman when he had minimal involvement in a small Tennessee subdivision. Last March, Gore reasserted his claim to have been a developer and small businessman. And, starting in 1994, Gore has added two years to his journalistic experience, upping the figure from the five years he once claimed to seven. In one 1988 ad, Gore claimed to have been a ''brilliant student,'' but that has been contradicted by Turque's biography. Gore's transcripts show that his high school and college grades were predominantly B's and C's. The same campaign ad also said Gore ''refused any special treatment'' when he joined the Army for two years and went to Vietnam, where he spent five months. Yet Turque discovered evidence that General William C. Westmoreland played some role in Gore's enlistment. And when Gore arrived in Vietnam, Turque reports, his commanding officer issued instructions that Gore be kept away from danger. In his campaigns in 1984 and 1988, Gore awarded himself credit for national policy accomplishments that a junior member of the House or Senate could only dream of. For example, Gore immersed himself in the nuclear arms debate, becoming one of a number of House moderates whose support was coveted by the Reagan administration. The Democrats, led by Representative Les Aspin and Senator Sam Nunn, and backed by Gore, wanted a less destabilizing option than the multiple-warhead MX missile. Their plan, ultimately shelved by the White House, called for the single-warhead Midgetman missile. Yet when Gore ran for the Senate in 1984, one TV ad proclaimed, ''He wrote the bipartisan plan on arms control that US negotiators will take to the Russians.'' ''That is a vast overstatement. He had nothing to do with what we proposed to the Soviets,'' Kenneth Adelman, who was the director of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, said in an interview. Adelman's view is supported by the two biographies, and by contemporaneous news accounts. When he ran for president four years later, Gore aired television ads showing him shaking hands with Gorbachev. And he told audiences that he had met with the Soviet leader. But Gore's only ''meeting'' with Gorbachev took place when the two men shook hands during a luncheon Gorbachev had with 26 members of Congress. And further seeking to highlight his national security credentials in that race, Gore visited the naval base in Norfolk, Va. in February 1988 to chastise his Democratic primary opponents for opposing funds to build new aircraft carriers. As for himself, Gore said, ''I would stand for a strong America.'' Gore neglected to mention that he had voted in the Senate against the funding for carriers. In two other campaign ads in 1988, Gore awarded himself credit for the landmark 1980 Superfund legislation, saying he ''led the fight to clean up toxic waste'' and was the ''author of a tough Superfund law to protect the environment and crack down on toxic polluters.'' But someone else was the author. Gore played only a supporting role as one of 42 House co-sponsors. Tobacco is another issue where Gore's statements have been open to question. Despite his assertions, repeated this year, that he worked for tougher restrictions against tobacco, Gore was a reliable vote for tobacco interests while he was in the House. But it was an emotional speech at the 1996 Democratic National Convention in Chicago that biographers like Turque and Zelnick find even more troubling. In it, Gore recounted his sister's death from lung cancer, caused by cigarettes she began smoking at age 13. ''Tomorrow morning, another 13-year-old girl will start smoking. I love her, too,'' Gore declared, bringing tears to the eyes of many listeners. ''Three thousand young people in America will start smoking tomorrow. One thousand of them will die a death not unlike my sister's. And that is why until I draw my last breath, I will pour my heart and soul into the cause of protecting our children from the dangers of smoking.'' A day later, Gore was accused of hypocritically exploiting his sister's death for political gain. The reason: For seven years after his sister died, Gore remained an ally of big tobacco and accepted both tobacco campaign contributions and federal subsidies for the tobacco grown on his farm. Even in the face of lingering questions about his tendency to embellish, the vice president nevertheless misstated his own record and distorted Bradley's at several critical junctures in the last six months. Jamieson, the University of Pennsylvania scholar, said this year's most egregious example of Gore's willingness to stretch the truth was his continued repetition of the charge that Bradley had opposed flood relief for midwestern farmers in 1993. During a Jan. 9 debate in Des Moines, Gore chastised Bradley for opposing flood aid. The attack had been choreographed in advance: Gore asked a local farmer hurt by the floods to stand for dramatic effect. Soon after, Gore unveiled television advertisements in which Iowa Senator Tom Harkin touted Gore as ''the only Democratic candidate for president who helped make sure that Iowa got the help we desperately needed after those floods.'' Caught off guard in debate, Bradley failed to respond. But Gore was widely criticized when details of the flood votes emerged, showing that Bradley had voted for $4.8 billion in Midwest flood relief and opposed only an amendment to add $900 million more. Even the White House opposed the amendment until the last moment. Under criticism, the Gore campaign briefly stopped running the ad. But on the weekend before Iowa's caucus, it reappeared on Iowa airwaves. Bradley was badly drubbed in Iowa, sending him into a tailspin from which he never recovered. Biographer Zelnick, who now teaches at Boston University, called the disaster relief accusation a ''premeditated falsehood.'' That incident, Zelnick said in an interview, ''was far different from speaking off the cuff and having an irresistible impulse to embellish. The farmer was a total plant, and the assertion misrepresented Bill Bradley's position. It is and should be a subject of concern for voters.'' Family members get praise But it is not just his own life story and record that Gore has selectively rewritten. Since his father died 16 months ago, the vice president has described the elder Gore in several speeches, including one last April before an NAACP audience, as an early champion for civil rights during his three Senate terms from 1953 to 1971. ''Halfway through this century,'' Gore said, in declaring his candidacy last June, ''when my father saw that thousands of his fellow Tennesseans were forced to obey Jim Crow laws, he knew America could do better. He saw a horizon in which his black and white constituents shared the same hopes in the same world.'' It was a moving tribute, but with a notable omission: The elder Gore voted against the landmark civil rights legislation of his time, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which repudiated the Jim Crow laws. To be sure, Albert Gore Sr. stood out among Southern Democrats in the Senate. He refused to support the Southern Manifesto in the 1950s, supported the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and voted against two Supreme Court nominees who opposed civil rights. `Those brave stands probably cost him his career,'' Gore told the NAACP audience in Detroit last April 25. But historians and the elder Gore have attributed his 1970 defeat mostly to his opposition to the Vietnam War. Before other audiences, Gore has cited the war as the issue that cost his father his Senate seat. And, during his lifetime, the elder Gore made no claims to match his son's recent recollections. Late in his life, he said he regretted his vote against the 1964 measure. In his memoirs, he said he was ''no white knight'' on civil rights. Hattaway played down the contrast between Gore's claims and his father's record, noting that many civil rights leaders have praised Gore's father's record. Nancy Gore Hunger, who was 10 years older than her brother, worked as a paid staff aide at Peace Corps headquarters from early 1961, when the agency was founded, until 1964, according to Peace Corps records and several friends. Yet Gore, in a 1992 appearance on C-SPAN, called his sister ''the very first volunteer for the Peace Corps.'' In 1994, when the University of Tennessee at Knoxville established a chair in her name, Gore said: ''She was the very first volunteer in the Peace Corps. She did so much for so many.'' In 1996, when Gore addressed a meeting of Peace Corps officials, for whom the ''volunteer'' label has special meaning, he did not describe her as a volunteer. Coates Redmon, author of a book about the Peace Corps and a Peace Corps colleague of Nancy Gore Hunger's, said the agency's first volunteers have always been afforded special status. For the vice president to describe his sister that way, Redmon said, ''amounts to stretching the truth." hereliesalgore.com