"...On May 3, Texas Gov. George W. Bush alleged that Vice President Al Gore was once a member of the National Rifle Association..."

"...I disagree with the vice president on this issue. I don't -- he's for registration of guns I think the only people who are going to show up to register or get a license -- I guess licensing, like a driver's license with a gun -- the only people who are going to show up are law-abiding citizens..."

Jerry Politex (Bushwatch/TomPaine):
"...Fact: "Gore actually favors licensing for new handgun purchasers but nothing as vast as registering all guns." Salon, 10/12/00..."

"...In the first debate, after Gore pointed out some of the differences between the two candidates' positions on Medicare, Bush replied, "I'm beginning to think this man not only invented the Internet, he invented the calculator."..."

See eRiposte Al Gore media bias page for relevant links.

"...said last week that the campaign studied Gore's 1988 presidential bid and closely tracked this year's Democratic primary fight...Gore, they argue, was the first candidate to raise the specter of Willie Horton in the 1988 primary..."

"...Remember when Al Gore said his mother-in-law's prescription cost more than his dog's? His own aides said the story was made up..."

"...[Gore] talks about numbers. I’m beginning to think, not only did he invent the Internet, but he invented the calculator. (LAUGHTER). 
It’s fuzzy math. It’s to scare them, trying to scare people in the voting booth..."

Bush

"...GORE (to Bush): 95% of all seniors would get no help whatsoever, under my opponent’s plan, for the first 4 or 5 years. Why is it that the wealthiest 1% get their tax cuts the first year, but 95% of seniors have to wait 4 to 5 years before they get a single penny?
BUSH: I guess my answer to that is, the man’s running on Mediscare, trying to frighten people in the voting booth. That’s just not the way I think, and I that’s just not my intentions. That’s not my plan..."

(1 for calling Gore a liar, and 1 for lying compassion about his own plan)

"...the Gore Plan Provides: No choices, insufficient coverage. Al Gore says he’ll fight for the people against HMOs, but his prescription drug proposal forces seniors to join HMOs selected for them by Washington..."

"...accused Vice President Al Gore of using “fuzzy math” when Gore pointed out that Bush’s plan would spend more of the surplus on tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers than on education, health, prescription drugs and the national defense combined..."

"...Bush, citing figures his staff said were from a review of his plan by Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation, said that $223 billion of the total would go to these affluent taxpayers not the some $561 billion the Gore campaign has suggested..."

...Who wrote this October 17 critique? Why, it was Melanie Ho, a UCLA senior, writing in the Daily Bruin. While mainstream “journalists” cowered and quaked—and told the world what a liar Gore was—a college student was somehow able to note the “irony” in what Bush was doing. We’ve often asked if high school students could get away with work like the press corps’. In the fall of 2000, only Melanie Ho—a college student—had the courage to get this tale right. Who created the Culture of Lying? Manifestly, your “press corps” did..."

Daily Howler:
"...Consummate clowning would be involved in the effort to shoot down Gore’s statement. But it all began with a blunder by Bush. The morning after that first debate, Bush appeared on Good Morning America. Asked about Gore’s “one percent” claim, Bush seemed to say that the claim had been accurate. Charles Gibson had to ask his question two times. But the second time, he got Bush to answer:
GIBSON (10/4/00): You said all of that. But is he incorrect in saying that you would give to the top one percent of income earners in this country in tax relief more than you would spend on health care, prescription drugs, education, and national defense combined?
BUSH: No. That’s what I just said. I think what people have got to understand is, wealthy people pay a lot of taxes today. And if everyone gets tax relief, wealthy people are going to get tax relief.

To all appearances, Bush had said that Gore’s claim was factually accurate. Clearly, that’s what GMA thought he had said. “We heard Governor Bush just say that Vice President Gore was right on the amount that he’d be spending for the richest Americans,” Diane Sawyer said, a few moments later. Within hours, though, that had changed. By the afternoon of October 4, Candidate Bush was trashing Gore hard, saying that his claims were invented. In an interview with the Baltimore Sun’s Karen Hosler, he basically called Gore a liar: 
HOSLER: [Bush] spoke disparagingly of figures Gore gave regarding Medicare. “I don’t know where he drug up those numbers,” said Bush in his Texas twang, “probably the same place he drug up the numbers on rich people—he made it up.”..."

(1 for calling Gore a liar, and 1 for lying compassion about his own plan)

"...Larry Lindsey, Bush's chief economic adviser, proclaimed, "The Joint Committee on Taxation proves that Vice President Gore was badly mistaken, inaccurately portraying Governor Bush's plan as costing sixty percent more than it actually does."..."

Bush

"...I can’t let the man continue with fuzzy math. It’s $1.3 trillion, Mr. Vice President. And it’s going to go to everybody who pays taxes. I’m not going to be a pick-and-chooser. What is fair is everybody who pays taxes ought to get relief..."

(1 for calling Gore a liar, and 1 for lying compassion about his own plan)

"...Now all of a sudden [Gore's] decided it's okay to be managing money in the stock market. First the stock market was roulette and risky, and now the heat's on, and he changes position..."

"...responded by charging that Mr. Gore's Social Security plan will add no less than $40 trillion to the national debt..."

Also see: Sam Parry (Consortium News)

"...Promoting his own plan to allow workers to invest some of their Social Security money in stocks and bonds, Bush said Gore "doesn't think people are up to the task of managing their own money." "This is analog thinking in a digital age, 28K thinking in a broadband era, and eight-track ideology in an MP3 world," Bush asserted, drawing hearty applause and laughter. "And our nation must move beyond it." Bush has defended his plan to augment Social Security with "personal retirement accounts" against Gore claims that it would drain the underlying Social Security system by $1 trillion over ten years. "My opponent seems to be deliberately missing a trillion dollars. Maybe if you've been in Washington too long you lose your ability to count real money," Bush said..."It is irresponsible for the chairman of the Democratic Party and for Vice President Gore to stoke the fears of seniors while ignoring the hopes of younger workers," Bush said..."

Jonathan Chait (The New Republic):
"...Bush acts as if this concept were new. It's not. Indeed, the United States once had a retirement system in which individuals made their own decisions and managed their own money. This system would best be described as "nothing." It's what we had before 1935, and it didn't work terribly well: people who didn't earn lavish incomes over the course of their working lives often ended up in poverty, as did those who gambled on risky investments and lost. That's why FDR's administration created Social Security: to make sure every worker got a pension sufficient to pay for basic necessities like food and shelter...
Bush, cleverly, has turned this into a moral argument. "Al Gore, who calls these bipartisan proposals risky, has a substantial amount of his money invested in the stock market," he claims (erroneously). "Why does he object to young Americans doing the same?" Of course Gore does not object to young Americans, or anybody else, having money in the stock market; he objects to cutting a guaranteed benefit in order for them to do so..."

(1 for lying compassion about his plan 1 for lying compassion about Gore)

said "...that the Clinton administration did nothing "to strengthen Social Security and repair Medicare,"..."

"...charged that Gore’s spending proposals are three times what Clinton proposed in 1992...said Gore’s spending proposals are greater than the combination of what Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis proposed in 1984 and 1988, respectively...
[claimed] Gore’s total spending [proposal was]...$127 billion..."

"...Under Gore’s plan, we’re talking about. adding 20,000 new bureaucrats..."

"...The Senate Budget Committee did a study of Gore’s expenditures: it could conceivably bust the budget by $900 billion..."

"...Bush said Gore was a big spender whose proposals would bust the budget. And he said electing Gore would mean the return of big government..."

"...in the first presidential debate, the Republican claimed that the Gore campaign had out-spent his. “This man has out-spent me,” Bush said..."

Daily Howler (1999):
"...According to Ceci Connolly’s Post Magazine cover story (4/4), the Gore campaign hopes to spend $47 million during the upcoming primaries. This would include up to $16 million in federal matching funds--meaning the campaign itself would have to raise $31 million from individual contributors...
CONNOLLY: [W]hile the vice president’s game plan this year is virtually the same as Lamar Alexander’s or Elizabeth Dole’s or George W. Bush’s, his fund-raising machine is bigger, tougher, faster.
But it’s hard to know how to reconcile that with the fund-raising goals we have stated. When Gore is raising $31 million to Bush’s $50 million, how is the Gore “machine” “bigger?” Indeed, Connolly acknowledges the Bush camp’s plan later on in her article:
CONNOLLY: In recent campaigns, wealthy contestants like Ross Perot and Steve Forbes have tossed out the rule book and the matching funds that come with it and spent their own millions with no restrictions. And this year, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, fearing Forbes will again use his wealth to carpet-bomb fellow Republicans, is considering forgoing matching funds in order to bust the spending limits in the early primaries..."

Also see: Daily Howler

"...''I think the vice president is probably going to have to explain what he meant by some of the things in his book, to share with us the philosophy behind some of the standards in the book.''..."

"...said the Clinton-Gore administration “took 40 million acres of land out of circulation without consulting local officials. … I just cited an example of the administration just unilaterally acting without any input.” ..."

"...I just found out the other day an interesting fact, that there's a national petroleum reserve right next to Prudhoe Bay that your administration had opened up for exploration in that pristine area..."

said "...that two of the Army's 10 active divisions are so ill-prepared for combat that, if called, they would have to report, "Not ready for duty, sir."..."

Issues2000:
"...Bush had said: “If called on by the commander-in-chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report ‘Not ready for duty, sir.’” But Maj. Thomas Collins, an Army spokesman, told CNN: “All 10 Army divisions are combat-ready, fully able to meet their war-fighting mission.”..."

said "Not since the years before Pearl Harbor has our investment in national defense been so low as a percentage"

POST-SCRIPT (2001)
"...Last week, according to newspaper reports, Mr. Bush told lawmakers that there would be "no new money this year for defense." Karen Hughes, a counselor to Mr. Bush, conceded that "we may in fact need resources" for the military — may? after all that martial rhetoric? — but made it clear that there was no rush. One officer bitterly declared, "It sounds like campaign promise No. 1 being broken."..."

(Note that increased defense spending was proposed by the administration only after its 2001 tax cut passed)

claiming "...Clinton and Al Gore "have done nothing to help children"..."

"...You were promised a middle class tax cut in 1992. It didn't happen..." (suggesting Clinton/Gore didn't keep a promise)

"...I felt during his debate with Senator [Bill] Bradley saying he [Gore] authored the EITC [earned-income tax credit] when it didn't happen..."

"..."Real Plans for Real People."... "Compassionate conservatism"... "Reformer With Results"..."

"...“Could I pass the challenge of a background check? My answer is absolutely,” Bush said. “Not only could I pass the background check and the standards applied to today’s White House, but I could have passed the background check and the standards applied on the most stringent conditions when my dad was President -- 15-year period.”..."

Also see: Jake Tapper (Salon)

Bush

"...It's time for some politician to stand up and say, "Enough is enough of this." The game of trying to force me to prove a negative and to chase down unsubstantiated ugly rumors has got to end..."

Daily Howler:
"...Bush says he won't discuss what he may have done wrong, because it may make young people think it's OK. But he has widely discussed the fact that he drank heavily until he was forty years old. To believe Bush didn't do drugs is to believe the following: on principle, he won't discuss the thing he didn't do, while discussing quite freely the thing that he did. We take it as obvious that this makes no sense. But some in the press pretend otherwise...
EVANS: The "Big Question" for Gov. George W. Bush, Jr., of Texas. Governor, there are and have been rumors—lots of them—of your possible past use of hard drugs. Sir, is it not now in your interest to tell us flatly that the rumors are or are not true?
GOV. BUSH: You know, Rollie, when I first got started on this campaign I started hearing about these ridiculous rumors. I made my mind up at that time not to chase every single rumor that had been floated about me...It's time for some politician to stand up and say, "Enough is enough of this." The game of trying to force me to prove a negative and to chase down unsubstantiated ugly rumors has got to end.
...But, despite the artless questioning of the occasional host, Bush is not being asked to "disprove a rumor." He is being asked to answer a question, one which every presidential candidate has been asked since the 1988 campaign. The 1988 admissions by candidates Gore and Babbitt resulted from The Question. In 1992, Candidate Clinton's famous statement that he didn't inhale resulted from the same process. Every other candidate in the present race has been asked the question which Bush has been asked. No one asked them to prove their case when they said that they didn't use drugs..."

"...said, “I think you've got to look at how one has handled responsibility in office, whether or not … you've got the capacity to convince people to follow; whether or not one makes decisions based upon sound principles; or whether or not you rely upon polls and focus groups on how to decide what the course of action is. We've got too much polling and focus groups going on in Washington today. We need decisions made on sound principles.” ..."

Daily Howler:
"...Weisman did introduce one new idea—the idea that Bush has done the same things as Gore, but just hasn't been ridiculed for it. Indeed, we were struck by that very same thought when we read Terry Neal's piece in last Friday's Washington Post. According to Neal, the GOP is "planning a summer convention that minimizes attack politics." Why has the party decided to play down attacks? Here was one part of the background:
NEAL: Last month, the Texas governor's campaign held focus group discussions and concluded that Vice President Gore's biggest liability with voters is his personality—particularly when he's in attack mode. The information collected there as well as polling data has persuaded the campaign to take the high road and deviate from its original strategy, which Bush indicated in March would include direct and frequent attacks on Gore.
Ohmigod! According to Neal, the Bush campaign has used focus groups and polling data, and changed the hopeful's approach! If you wanted to, you could almost say that Bush had thus "reinvented himself." Indeed, Neal also stated in his piece that Bush will avoid certain issues at the convention:
NEAL: The campaign is trying to focus the event narrowly on the issues Bush has concentrated on since effectively wrapping up the nomination in March: education, Social Security and Medicare, "compassion subjects" (empowerment and revitalization), and national defense...Notably absent from the agenda are tax cuts and abortion.
Bush's tax cut was once "rolled out" as a major part of his campaign...."

"...“I believe they've moved that sign, ‘The buck stops here,’ from the Oval Office desk to ‘The buck stops here’ on the Lincoln bedroom, and that's not good for the country. It's not right. We need to have a new look about how we conduct ourselves in office,” Bush said. .."

"...In his 1999 autobiography A Charge to Keep, Mr. Bush offers a lyrical description of his flight training in the F-102 fighter. "I continued flying with my unit for the next several years," he writes..."

"...His campaign biography states that he flew with the unit until he won release from the service in September 1973, nine months early, for graduate school..."

Eric Alterman (MSNBC/WLM page 173):
"...But both claims are false. Bush flew with the 111th for 22 months, until April 1972, and never flew again..."

Note: Uggabugga's table is good. Also see AWOLBush.

"...Further along [in his 1999 autobiography] he says his military service "gave me respect for the chain of command."..."

"...claim that he vaulted ahead of the Air Guard waiting list because he was willing to fly an airplane, and there were openings..."

"They were looking for pilots, and I was honored to serve.", Governor Bush told the Dallas Morning News. [DMN9/08/99]..."

"...Bush and his campaign have said that he performed "alternative" duty at the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron in Montgomery from May to November 1972, while he was working on a Senate race in Alabama..."

"...Bush has said that he has “some recollection” of attending drills that year, but has not been more specific..."

Bush campaign

(provided a) "...tattered piece of attendance record (which lists no months, years, or last name)...as evidence of attending Air National Guard training..."

Eric Alterman (MSNBC/WLM page 173):
"...But, the Globe notes, Bush’s own records contradict that assertion. In May 1972, Bush sought a permanent transfer to a postal unit in Alabama that didn’t require weekend drills or active duty. Guard headquarters overruled that decision. Bush did not do any drills from May through September 1972. In September 1972, Bush won approval to do temporary "alternative" training at the 187th Squadron in Montgomery. He was cleared to attend weekend drills in October and November. But two of the 187th’s officers said Bush never appeared. One of them, retired Brig. Gen. William Turnipseed, says he is "dead-certain he didn’t show up." Bush, who refuses all interviews on the subject, says he was there, but can’t remember anything he did. His campaign can find no records to corroborate this..."

Also see Talion.com for a copy of the report from May 1973 signed by his superiors stating that Bush stopped flying after May 1972. 

Talion.com:
"...The tattered piece of attendance record (which lists no months, years, or last name) which the Bush campaign presented as evidence of attending Air National Guard training is not even from the Air National Guard. This incomplete scrap of paper is from the Air Force Reserve punishment unit, not the Air National Guard. (13) Note the ARF (Air Reserve Force) listing at the top, rather than the ANG designator, which would indicate it was from the Air National Guard..."

Talion.com:
"...1. A September 29, 1972 Air National Guard confirming orders “suspending 1st Lt. George W. Bush from flying status are confirmed...Reason for Suspension: Failure to accomplish annual medical exam.”...4. In Fall 1973, as an automatic disciplinary action, Bush was reassigned to the Obligated Reserve Section in Denver, because he disobeyed orders to show up for a mandatory flight physical and therefore was unable to fulfill the last two years of his six-year obligation as an Air National Guard jet fighter pilot..."

Daily Howler:
"...Andrew Sullivan suggests that Paul Krugman has glossed the facts of the “missing year” case. Sullivan refers to a New York Times report of November 3, 2000. The report directly referenced Robinson’s prior work; in it, Jo Thomas judged that “some of [Robinson’s] concerns may be unfounded. Documents reviewed by The Times showed that Mr. Bush served in at least 9 of the 17 months in question.” Thomas’ short, 539-word piece was, in fact, quite sketchy. Even she found a “seven-month gap” (April 1972 to November 1972) in which Bush performed no service. In some ways, Thomas even seemed a bit slick. For example, she quoted General Turnipseed in such a way as to suggest that Bush had served in Alabama (see Sullivan’s item today). But she failed to mention Turnipseed’s repeated statements that Bush had not served there..." 

Also see this Daily Howler series for a detailed examination of the above.

"I can't remember what I did, but I wasn't flying because they didn't have the same airplanes. I fulfilled my obligations."

"...As for Mr. Bush’s curious failure to take the annual physical in 1972, the only excuse he has offered is that he was in Alabama working on a Republican Senate campaign and couldn’t get back to Houston for a checkup by his personal physician..."

RealChange:
"...his story also changed on why he refused to take a medical exam -- including a drug test - in 1972. (The refusal ended Bush's flying career.) His staff first claimed that he didn't take the physical because he was in Alabama and his personal physician was in Houston. But flight physicals can be administered only by certified Air Force flight surgeons, and there were surgeons assigned at the time to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, where Bush was living. His staff now admits that that explanation was "wrong", without saying where it came from or what the real reason was..."

"...[claimed that] he tried to volunteer for service in Vietnam "to relieve active-duty pilots."..."

RealChange:
"...He has stated on several occasions that he did not want to be an infantryman, and acknowledges that he came to oppose the war itself. He claims that he joined the guard to fly planes, and would have been happy to go to Vietnam, but ignores the obvious choice of the Air Force or the Navy -- which his dad, a genuine war hero, joined. Furthermore, when he signed up for the Guard, he checked a box saying "Do not volunteer for overseas service." Later, he made a perfunctory application to transfer to a program called "Palace Alert", which dispatched F-102 pilots to Europe or the Far East -- and just occasionally Vietnam -- for 3 or 6 month assignments. But Bush was not nearly qualified, as he must have known, and was immediately turned down, and the F-102 not used overseas after June, 1970 in any case..."

"...Bush has said no one to his knowledge helped him get into the National Guard. “I asked to become a pilot,” Bush said. “I met the qualifications, and ended up becoming an F-102 pilot,” The Associated Press reported. Bush insisted that he knew of no special treatment. [AP, July 5, 1999] ..."

RealChange:
"...On May 27, 1968, George Bush Jr. was 12 days away from losing his student draft deferment, at a time when 350 Americans a week were dying in combat. The National Guard, seen by many as the most respectable way to avoid Vietnam, had a huge waiting list -- a year and a half in Texas, over 100,000 men nationwide. Yet Bush and his family friends pulled strings, and the young man was admitted the same day he applied, regardless of any waiting list. 
Bush's unit commander, Col. "Buck" Staudt, was so excited about his VIP recruit that he staged a special ceremony for the press so he could have his picture taken administering the oath (even though the official oath had been given by a captain earlier.)...Of course, it later came out in court that a close Bush friend, Simon Adger, had asked Barnes to get Bush Jr. into the Guard, and that Barnes did so, via General Rose...
George Bush Jr. admits that he knew Adger socially at the time, and further admits that he lobbied Col. "Buck" Staudt, the commander of the VIP unit Bush joined. Staudt claims that he, not General Rose (who he later replaced), was the one who made the decision on admissions anyway. Bush Jr. admits that he met Staudt in late 1967, during Christmas vacation of his senior year, called him later, and -- in Bush's words -- "found out what it took to apply." When asked how Bush came to call Staudt, his spokeswoman Karen Hughes said he "heard from friends while he was home over the Christmas break that ... Colonel Staudt was the person to contact." She says that Bush doesn't recall who those "friends" were. But we know that Sid Adger was also a friend of Staudt's, served with him on the Houston Chamber of Commerce's Aviation Committee, and in 1967 held a luncheon honoring Gen. Staudt and his unit for winning an Air Force commendation. In fact, both of Adger's sons also joined General Staudt's unit, in 1966 and 1968 respectively..."