Hillary Clinton's Turn to McCarthyism

Oliver's assistants also found that the administration's tampering allegation rested on a very weak premise, the slight tear in the passport application. The circumstances of the late-night search soon found their way into an article in The Washington Post, causing embarrassment to the Bush campaign.

Yet still sensing that the loyalty theme could hurt Clinton, President Bush kept stoking the fire. On CNN's "Larry King Live" on Oct. 7, 1992, Bush suggested anew that there was something sinister about a possible Clinton friend allegedly tampering with Clinton's passport file.

"Why in the world would anybody want to tamper with his files, you know, to support the man?" Bush wondered before a national TV audience. "I mean, I don't understand that. What would exonerate him -- put it that way -- in the files?" The next day, in his diary, Bush ruminated suspiciously about Clinton's Moscow trip: "All kinds of rumors as to who his hosts were in Russia, something he can't remember anything about."

But the GOP attack on Clinton's loyalty prompted some Democrats to liken Bush to Sen. Joe McCarthy, who built a political career in the early days of the Cold War challenging people's loyalties without offering proof.

On Oct. 9, the FBI further complicated Bush's strategy by rejecting the criminal referral. The FBI concluded that there was no evidence that anyone had removed anything from Clinton's passport file.

At that point, Bush began backpedaling: "If he's told all there is to tell on Moscow, fine," Bush said on ABC's "Good Morning America." "I'm not suggesting that there's anything unpatriotic about that. A lot of people went to Moscow, and so that's the end of that one."

Not Really

But documents that I obtained years later at the Archives revealed that privately Bush was not so ready to surrender the disloyalty theme. The day before the first presidential debate on Oct. 11, 1992, Bush prepped himself with one-liners designed to spotlight doubts about Clinton's loyalty if an opening presented itself.

"It's hard to visit foreign countries with a torn-up passport," read one of the scripted lines. Another zinger read: "Contrary to what the Governor's been saying, most young men his age did not try to duck the draft. ... A few did go to Canada. A couple went to England. Only one I know went to Russia."

If Clinton had criticized Bush's use of a Houston hotel room as a legal residence, Bush was ready to hit back with another Russian reference: "Where is your legal residence, Little Rock or Leningrad?"

But the Oct. 11 presidential debate -- which also involved Reform Party candidate Ross Perot -- did not go as Bush had hoped. Bush did raise the loyalty issue in response to an early question about character, but the incumbent's message was lost in a cascade of inarticulate sentence fragments.

"I said something the other day where I was accused of being like Joe McCarthy because I question -- I'll put it this way, I think it's wrong to demonstrate against your own country or organize demonstrations against your own country in foreign soil," Bush said.

"I just think it's wrong. I -- that -- maybe -- they say, 'well, it was a youthful indiscretion.' I was 19 or 20 flying off an aircraft carrier and that shaped me to be commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and -- I'm sorry but demonstrating -- it's not a question of patriotism, it's a question of character and judgment."

Clinton countered by challenging Bush directly. "You have questioned my patriotism," the Democrat shot back.

Clinton then unloaded his own zinger: "When Joe McCarthy went around this country attacking people's patriotism, he was wrong. He was wrong, and a senator from Connecticut stood up to him, named Prescott Bush. Your father was right to stand up to Joe McCarthy. You were wrong to attack my patriotism."

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