Boys' night out catches Bush on the hop

In any other situation it would look pretty small beer: a night on the booze in 1976, a drink-driving charge and a US$150 (HK$1,170) fine.

But magnified in the hot spotlights of a deadlocked race for the White House with just four days to go before election day, the revelations that late on Thursday engulfed the campaign of Republican George W. Bush cannot be ignored. 'This is the sort of thing you hope against hope will not happen,' one Republican National Committee official said. 'And when it does, it is panic . . . we can only hope that the public will put it in its right perspective.'

The news was pretty straightforward. Aged 29, Mr Bush was stopped by police in his car after a night out with Australian tennis star John Newcombe near his family's home in Kennebunkport, Maine. He later pleaded guilty to driving under the influence, paid the fine and lost his right to drive in the state for a month.

As he tried to extricate himself from the mess late on Thursday, Mr Bush appeared to be getting ever more entangled. Suddenly his old, relatively successful approach of 'limited openness' about his wild youth seemed simply evasive. He even dragged his daughters into the fray, saying he had kept the conviction quiet even from them as he did not want them doing the same thing. Unlike Vice-President Al Gore, who actively campaigns with his family, Mr Bush constantly tries to shield his 18-year-old twin girls from the media spotlight.

One of his campaign advisers looked even more silly when she said Mr Bush was initially stopped for driving too slowly. Any damage to Mr Bush's campaign will only become apparent today once the latest tracking polls have taken account of the event.

In the curious business of political perception, any nagging sense of evasion can be far more damaging than the crime itself.