As dirty tricks go, the leak to a Maine TV reporter of George W. Bush's 1976 arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol is a mixed bag. THE SCRAPBOOK has to award it 10 points for timing: It's the first November Surprise. On the other hand, the information itself is true. World-class dirty tricks involve what the late Mayor Daley of Chicago called "insinuendo." Still, if a link to the Gore campaign can be established, the D-Dubya-I story, as the New York Post headlined it, will enter the tricksters' pantheon.
But as we go to press on Friday, no such link has been proved. Tom Connolly, a Portland lawyer and Democratic convention delegate, gave a reporter the arrest record. Gore spokesman Chris Lehane, who grew up in Kenne-bunkport, Maine, where the arrest took place, says his camp had absolutely nothing to do with it. And Connolly told CNN that though he tried to fax the information to the Gore campaign, "the line was busy."
Connolly's contention "I have not had direct contact myself" with the Gore campaign sounds like weasel wording. But even if it isn't, Republicans, mindful of their WWCD bracelets (What Would Clinton Do?), will find it difficult to resist going after Connolly. It has nothing to do with Bush's behavior, but it's fun and God knows there's a rich vein of material.
Connolly contends that he publicized Bush's arrest because many would consider it "a crime of moral turpitude" -- moral turpitude being something Connolly is quite familiar with from his criminal defense practice. Not only has the solo practitioner represented hundreds of drunk drivers (irony alert), he's also championed a client who hurled racial slurs and bricks at a Portland woman and her 8-month-old biracial baby and another who tied his girlfriend's four-year-old daughter to a bed, beat her, sexually abused her, then cooked her to death in an oven.
During an unsuccessful 1998 bid for governor on the Democratic ticket, Connolly taunted Angus King, saying the incumbent had probably never received a grateful kiss from a heroin-addict client. (Even with Maine's addict community in his corner, Connolly garnered only 12 percent of the vote.)
In short, Connolly turns out to be a bit of a publicity jockey. (If THE SCRAPBOOK were a Court TV producer, it would have him signed to a contract already.) A delegate to both the 1996 and 2000 Democratic conventions, he showed up for the former costumed as Bob Dole. And during that same Chicago convention, he tried to interest local police in a bloody knife he found at a vacant lot during a clean-up effort, suggesting to them that it could be O. J. Simpson's. (He could tell the knife had been used in a stabbing, since "I defended a guy once who filleted someone.")
If you doubt that Connolly had it in for Bush, you should visit his website, wienerboy.org. In this painfully unfunny political satire site (which Connolly constructed earlier this year), he wittily asserts that the "W" in George W. Bush stands "for Wiener." He worries about Bush's character, since "with Clinton we knew about Paula Jones way in advance" (actually, we knew about Gennifer Flowers way in advance, but it's easy to confuse Clinton conquests and attempted conquests, on account of the sheer number). He is obsessed with Bush's executions record and lists the last meals of many of the condemned. Charles Tuttle, for instance, requested fried eggs, sausage patties, five pieces of white toast, and four Dr. Peppers. If Bush is guilty of a "crime of moral turpitude," Connolly, we think, may have committed a crime against humanity by composing this bit of political free verse: "All of 'em / put to death by drugs / Government drugs / that do in fact kill." Yuck.
More troubling still is that though Connolly professes to be Bates College's 1979 valedictorian, rudimentary spelling seems to elude him. (If THE SCRAPBOOK were Bates College, it would revoke the diploma.) As he presses his case that Bush is an intellectual light-weight, Connolly accuses him of being "padandict" (pedantic, we think) and wonders how to "devine the future."
If there is to be a President Bush, may his next tormentor come out of the woodwork armed with spellcheck.