To Graham, the theme that ties his attacks together is truth-telling. "I have been as explicit as I am capable of being that I believe this administration has not been straight with the American people in terms of a number of issues," he said in a telephone interview yesterday .
On the campaign trail, Graham bills himself as the most electable Democrat in the race. He points to his undefeated career in the swing-state crucible of Florida, where he has been elected statewide five times. At the same time that he touts his electability to the party's pragmatists, Graham has been giving party hard-liners plenty of red-meat anti-Bush rhetoric.
"From security issues to environmental protection, this pattern of hiding facts from the American people has made this White House the most secretive since the Nixon administration," Graham said this week, after the New York Times reported that Bush officials edited material about global warming out of a report by the Environmental Protection Agency. "Enough is enough. If George Bush won't trust America with the truth, then America shouldn't trust George Bush with the White House," Graham said.
Drawing on his experience as ranking Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, Graham has pounded on the administration's failure to dismantle the terrorist group behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "Al Qaeda was on the ropes in 2002," he said during a trip to Iowa this month, "and was allowed to regenerate." He likes to call Osama bin Laden "Osama bin Forgotten."
Graham has accused Bush of "using the economy cynically to pay off contributors" and steering tax cuts to "a thin band of the wealthiest Americans."
In perhaps his sharpest jab, he has lit into Bush for "misleading" the public about the likelihood that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Bush "politicalized [and] manipulated" intelligence reports to back up the case for war, Graham said.
Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) picked up on that charge this week. "He misled every one of us," Kerry said of Bush.
"He's really got a bead on this thing," said one senior Washington Democrat of Graham's anti-Bush barrage. "He's absolutely got the right message." But then he added the frequently expressed view in the capital that, because of his age, personality and recent health problems, Graham "is just the wrong messenger."
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