Gore says Bush lied on Qaeda, Iraq link
Al Gore accused President Bush yesterday of lying about a link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein and said the president refuses to back down from that position to avoid political fallout. "They dare not admit the truth lest they look like complete fools for launching our country into a reckless, discretionary war against a nation that posed no immediate threat to us whatsoever," Gore, the former vice president who lost the presidency to Bush in 2000, said during a speech at Georgetown University Law Center. Republicans responded that the Democrat's assertions were false and out of touch. (AP)
Group seeks ad ban for new Moore film
A conservative advocacy group asked a government agency yesterday to bar ads for Michael Moore's controversial film "Fahrenheit 9/11" on the grounds that they are "electioneering communications" restricted by federal campaign laws. Citizens United said it filed a formal complaint to the Federal Election Commission against the planned advertising campaign by the distributors of the film, which is critical of President Bush's prosecution of the war in Iraq. The group, which had participated in an unsuccessful court challenge against the campaign finance reform law enacted to reduce the influence of money in politics, said the act's restrictions against corporations engaging in advertising close to an election should apply to Moore's film. (Reuters)
OHIO
Woman Bush cited owes $300,000
CINCINNATI -- A former bookkeeper praised by President Bush for turning her life around with help from a social-services agency still owes at least $300,000 to the company she was convicted of stealing from, according to court records and the business owner. Susan Morin, owner of Gorman's Supply Inc. in suburban Cincinnati, said she was stunned to see Tami Jordan appear with Bush on television Monday. Morin's company had employed Jordan, 35, as a bookkeeper before she was convicted of theft and forgery in 2000. She was sentenced to three years in prison for having embezzled more than $300,000 from the company, according to records. During a visit Monday to Talbert House, a Cincinnati social-service agency that helps former convicts, Bush praised Jordan as a "good soul" who was making the best of her second chance. (AP)
MISSOURI
Voter organization to weed out felons
JEFFERSON CITY -- A political group that paid felons to conduct door-to-door voter registration drives with the aim of ousting President Bush in the 2004 election pledged yesterday to weed out any employees convicted of violent or serious offenses. America Coming Together announced a new policy for background checks after the Associated Press reported Wednesday that ACT had used people convicted of burglary, assault and sex offenses to canvass neighborhoods in at least three election swing states -- Missouri, Florida, and Ohio. It declined to define what it considers violent or serious offenses under the new policy. Since spring, "our policy has been that we're not going to employ violent felons," the group's Washington-based spokesman Mo Elliethee said yesterday. "We're going to conduct this background check to ensure we're not." (AP)
