Kennedy Accuses Bush of Nixonian 'Credibility Gap'

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), broadening his criticism of President Bush from foreign policy to domestic issues, accused Bush yesterday of having "created the largest credibility gap since Richard Nixon" on education, health and jobs, as well as the war in Iraq.

"He has broken the basic bond of trust with the American people," Kennedy said at the Brookings Institution in a speech that was clearly aimed at challenging Bush's credibility with voters, especially by comparing him with Nixon, who resigned as president in disgrace as a result of the Watergate scandal 30 years ago.

In response, Senate Republican leaders defended Bush's credibility, and the Bush-Cheney campaign accused Kennedy of serving as the "hatchet man" for Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

Kennedy, one of Bush's most vocal critics on Capitol Hill and a prominent Kerry backer, has made a series of speeches criticizing Bush's foreign policy and continued the attack yesterday, charging that Iraq was "George Bush's Vietnam."

In his speech, which was among his most sharply worded critiques of Bush, Kennedy also linked Iraq to domestic concerns, saying the war "diverted attention from the administration's deceptions here at home -- especially on the economy, health care and education." On domestic as well as foreign policy, "saying whatever it takes to prevail has become standard operating procedure in the Bush White House," he said. "In this administration, truth is the first casualty of policy."