Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.wpost From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: 'A Touch Unhinged' Talk, Ross, talk. The Texas Tyrant and Frequent Fibber has hit the campaign trail - made some speeches, shaken a hand or two and shown almost everyone who would listen, including the vast audi- ence of "60 Minutes," that he is unsuited for the presidency. Ross Perot is right about one thing: He is an American prototype - the eccentric millionaire. In Perot's case, the millions are actually billions, but unlike the American dollar, his weirdness cannot be inflated. Now Perot tells us that he quit the presiden- tial race last July because the Bush-Quayle organization had (1) concocted a photograph purportedly showing his daughter to be a lesbian; (2) was prepared to disrupt the young woman's August wedding (to a man, it turns out); and (3) had tapped the phones at Perot's Dallas headquarters. A vast army of sleuths, including the Dallas police, the FBI and Lesley Stahl of "60 Minutes," could find no basis for these charges. Perot's revelation leads to two Holmesian deductions: He is ei- ther lying now or he was lying in July, when he cited different, less dramatic, reasons for pulling out of the race. There is yet a third possibility - that Perot has been ensnared by the "Oc- topus." This is the term applied to believers in an umbrella con- spiracy, one so vast it is responsible for almost everything bad - from the Kennedy assassination to the banking scandals of more recent times. The tentacles of this octopus are called the Mafia, the CIA, the military-industrial complex and just about any or- ganization you can name. To my mind, belief in the "Octopus" is a sign of being a touch unhinged. Whatever his paranoid beliefs, Perot amounts to a reckless know-nothing - or, to be absolutely fair, a know-little. He proved that again in the last of the presidential debates. Out of nowhere, he accused President Bush of appeasing Saddam Hussein by telling Hussein that "he could take the northern part of Kuwait." For evidence, Perot offered nothing but an accusatory tone of voice. With nary a shrug, he plunged straight into the muck of McCarthyism. Reckless disregard of the truth is nothing new for Perot. He has denied saying what witnesses swear he has, in fact, said - like once suggesting that South Dallas be cordoned off and homes there searched for drugs and weapons. During the final presidential de- bate, he said that the Vietnamese had hired the Black Panthers to assassinate him. The Dallas police, who had two informers in the vast local chapter of the Black Panthers (total membership: about eight), say they know nothing of the plot, nor was it reported to them. Perot, who says he chased off the killers with a guard dog, apparently never mentioned any of this to the authorities. He's a busy man, y'know. As long as Perot stuck to his role as comic relief in the de- bates or - more important - the only candidate willing to talk about the national debt, he played a useful function. But now that he hovers around 20 percent in the national polls - even higher in certain western states - he could do real damage. The voters ought to be reminded that Perot lacks both the character and the integrity to be president. In Perot style (and if I had the bucks), I would establish an 800 number to list Perot's lies. The evidence is such that the message could not be brief. For instance, when he says that only rarely and then with some reluctance did he use private investigators, he's not exactly telling the truth. Just recently, I talked with a businessman who was investigated by Perot - not because they were suing one another but because Perot was considering a joint venture with him. And when, incidentally, the venture went through, Perot in- sisted on drug tests for one and all - including the man with whom he had negotiated. In a recent speech to the City Club of Cleveland, the pollster Lou Harris cited some impressive figures to show just how alienated many American are from government and other institu- tions: "72 percent (of likely voters) believe leaders are out of touch with the people, 66 percent express a sense of powerless- ness, and 61 percent say that the people running the country don't care what happens to them." As for the political and civic leadership, they are in similar disrepute. So it is understandable that Perot would be attractive to some. But he is not the protest candidate he seems. Instead, he is an enormously rich and willful man who has used his wealth to in- timidate enemies, critics and even employees, who is insulated from his mistakes by oodles of money and fawning aides and has the mentality of a bully. He says he would be something new in Washington. Not really. We've got all the liars we need at the moment. 02:28 10-27C9999----- Copyright 1992, The Washington Post. This story is from the Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar- chived or redistributed. For more information, send-email to American Cybercasting Cor- poration (usa@AmeriCast.COM)