Vice President George Bush questioned Michael Dukakis` consistency on defense issues Friday, saying the Massachusetts governor is confused ”on the basic facts.”
Throughout the presidential campaign, Bush has been trying to portray the Democratic nominee as dangerously inexperienced in national security matters and as favoring policies that would weaken the nation`s defense.
Dukakis` statements Thursday softening his position against the Strategic Defense Initiative and possibly favoring modernizing some land-based weapons systems offered Bush an opening as he addressed the executive board of the Illinois Federation of Republican Women.
While Bush was criticizing Dukakis, running mate Dan Quayle responded during campaign appearances in Ohio to new questions about how he got into law school 20 years ago. A Cleveland newspaper said Quayle, who had low grades as a college undergraduate, got into Indiana University Law School through a special program that was a predecessor to the school`s affirmative-action program.
”I got into law school fair and square,” Quayle said. ”Nothing improper was done and no rules were broken. The newspaper article makes that clear in the body of the story.”
Bush noted that Dukakis said he would modernize the land-based third of the nation`s nuclear defenses but also has opposed the only weapons systems in the pipeline for the modernization-the MX and Midgetman missiles-and that he also is against flight testing.
”My opponent seems not to understand that no new MX, no Midgetman, no flight testing adds up to no modernization of the land-based leg of our triad,” Bush said in Rockford`s Clock Tower Inn.
”Similarly, his position on SDI . . . calling it a fantasy one day, something he won`t rule out the next, also suggested a confusion, in my view, on the basic facts, confusion in terms of what he really believes and where he would take this country.”
Bush also said in interviews Friday that the name of a campaign worker fired for defending Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk was included on a list from the Republican National Committee.
Bush said he cannot remember ever meeting Jerome Brantar, who was cochairman of the Bush `88 Coalition of American Nationalities until he was fired Thursday.
”He wasn`t on my staff. It was an advisory committee,” Bush said. ”I just don`t want people associated with me who have a record of bigotry of any kind. . . . I don`t know this person, but if that`s the record, we`re better not to have any question raised of that nature and have the person do something else.”
The vice president`s visit to Illinois was his fourth since the primaries ended, and it was designed to shore up his standing among women and in the state`s agricultural belt. He said Illinois is ”going to be a battleground” and ”one of the critical four or five states” in the race for the presidency.
Last Sunday`s Tribune poll showed Bush trailing Dukakis 47 percent to 42 percent in Illinois. Polls show him closing the gender gap nationally so that he is running almost even with Dukakis among women, but Bush still is doing far better among men.
He told the women`s federation he will fight for equal pay for equal work and suggested for the first time that he may be in favor of some form of parental leave, although he did not specify any plan.
The central Illinois Farm Belt was where Sen. Bob Dole (R., Kan.) had his best showing against Bush in the Illinois primary last March, so after the Rockford speech Bush went to Pekin, near Peoria, for a speech on the steps of the Tazewell County Courthouse.
”The agricultural parts of your state and some of the industrial parts have had a tough time,” Bush said. ”Illinois is back and looking strong.”
Ed Murnane, executive director of Bush`s Illinois campaign who helped pick Friday`s sites, looked at industrial locations in the region such as the Caterpillar plant in Peoria, but decided to go to Pekin because of the weekend Marigold Festival honoring the city`s favorite son, the late Sen. Everett Dirksen.
