HE GAVE THEM A SWORD : :

DWI Story Cost Bush Popular Vote (News Max, 6/19/02)

The eleventh hour campaign revelation that then-GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush had been arrested in Maine in 1976 for driving under the influence of alcohol gave then-Vice President Al Gore the boost he needed to win the popular vote in the 2000 presidential election, Gore's former campaign spokesman Chris Lehane admitted late Tuesday.

"Obviously, I think it did have an impact on the election," Lehane told WABC Radio's John Batchelor and Paul

I'm a fan of George W. Bush and can understand his desire to maintain a zone of privacy, that would include stupid things he did before he entered public life. But the way he handled this fairly harmless story was just astoundingly idiotic. You have to know that this stuff will come out sooner or later--the only thing you can control is when. By allowing it to come out when the Gore team decided the time was right, he put his own election in jeopardy and the hopes of all his supporters in a precarious position. That's irresponsible and had he lost it would have have been just. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 19, 2002 1:09 PM