In arguing for war, Bush for months claimed that Saddam was in cahoots with al-Qaida. This was a powerful charge. Bush did not merely say there were links between the Iraqi government and Osama bin Laden’s murderous outfit. He declared there was an alliance. During a Nov. 7 press conference, Bush referred to Saddam and exclaimed: “He’s a threat because he is dealing with al-Qaida.” While it is unrealistic to expect that Bush, on his own, examined the supposed evidence underlying the uranium-from-Africa allegation, it is not unreasonable to believe that Bush, prior to charging that Saddam and bin Laden were in league, would have made certain he was speaking accurately.

Yet weeks earlier, the CIA had released findings that noted it had gathered evidence of a few contacts over the years between the Iraqi government and al-Qaida but nothing pointing to a current partnership. Recent news reports revealed that the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, most of which remains classified, conveyed an unclear picture of whatever contacts might have existed and warned about the reliability of the intelligence on this subject. So how did Bush reach his no-question-about-it conclusion that Saddam was “dealing” with bin Laden? In this case, he cannot blame an aide for inserting a line into a speech.

That was not the only time Bush or top administration officials made an unfounded claim of connections between Iraq an al-Qaida. During a Feb. 5 presentation to the United Nations, Secretary of State Colin Powell asserted there was a “sinister nexus” between Iraq and al-Qaida. He maintained that a terrorist named Abu Masab al-Zarqawi, who had allegedly helped establish a poison-training camp for terrorists in the Kurdish-controlled territory of northern Iraq, was collaborating with al-Qaida and being supported by Saddam’s government. Powell suggested that bin Laden and Saddam were doing business through this middleman. After his speech, terrorism experts and government officials said the evidence of this A-to-B-to-C relationship was spotty. CIA director George Tenet, in congressional testimony, noted that Zarqawi and his network were “independent” of al-Qaida. Yet none of this stopped Bush from saying, two days after Powell’s presentation, that Saddam was “harboring a terrorist network, headed by a senior al-Qaida planner.”

Not even Powell had described Zarqawi as a “senior al-Qaida planner.” And since the fall of Baghdad there has been no public indication that Zarqawi was indeed the missing link between al-Qaida and Saddam. In fact, some evidence has emerged in a German court case that Zarqawi’s outfit was a rival to al-Qaida.

Linking Saddam to the evildoers of 9/11 was key to Bush’s case for war. After a terrorist explosion in Bali killed more than 180 people, he asserted that Saddam intended to deploy al-Qaida as his own “forward army” against the West. It seems the National Intelligence Estimate missed that, too. And Bush repeatedly warned that at any moment Saddam could pass weapons of mass destruction to his pals at al-Qaida. (In fact, al-Qaida might now have a stronger presence in Iraq than before the war. Reuters reports that some of the anti-United States resistance groups in Iraq have been adopting the slogans of Osama bin Laden.)

Did Bush have cause to believe that Saddam had WMD to give to al-Qaida? In his speech to the nation two days before launching the war, he said: “Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess WMDs.” Yet both U.S. Rep. Jane Harman of California, a moderate and pro-war Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee (which is examining the prewar intelligence), and Richard Kerr, a former deputy CIA director who is conducting an internal CIA review, have said that the intelligence on WMD in Iraq was full of caveats and qualifiers. In other words, it was not no-doubt stuff. They also have reported that U.S. intelligence had not unearthed any evidence of operational ties between Saddam’s government and al-Qaida. If so, might that mean Bush lied?

The record is becoming increasingly clear: Bush, to be polite about it, dramatically overstated the central elements of his case for war. The yellowcake screw-up was a minor matter, hardly the direct fault of the president. But when it came to unconventional weapons in Iraq and the relationship between al-Qaida and Saddam, Americans should have been able to assume Bush was monitoring these crucial issues closely and vigilantly and speaking about them carefully and truthfully. In defending Bush on the Niger business, the White House has said that the president is not a fact checker. True enough. But a president ought to be sure he possesses the basic facts before going to war, and he ought to convey them honestly to the public and to the troops that will be acting — and dying — on his orders. The outrage over the Niger affair is misplaced, and it is possible that the controversy over this single sentence might divert attention from Bush’s more significant prewar assertions. As Bush White House aides say, it is time to move on — but it is time to move on to scrutinizing the misleading Bush statements that were essential to bringing this country to war and occupation.

The event was sponsored by the right-leaning institute’s magazine and the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, a conservative outfit headed by David Horowitz, the combative leftist-turned-rightist author and Salon columnist. The lineup of speakers included nearly 100 Hillary friends and Hillary foes, but tilted toward the Hillary-sucks side. Panelists included renowned Clinton hater Christopher Hitchens; Joyce Milton and Laura Ingraham, both authors of anti-Hillary books; and Horowitz himself.

The conference opened with bad news. Dick Morris, it was announced, had canceled without explanation. Why would the toe-sucking political consultant — a one-time Clinton ally who has been a prominent Hillary slasher — pass up the chance to twist the knife once more? The first speaker, Nation and Vanity Fair columnist Hitchens, offered an explanation: Perhaps it was because Hitchens repeatedly has accused Morris of being a “procurer and pimp for Mr. Clinton.” Hitchens meant those charges literally, but at this forum he provided no further details regarding this salacious aside. After all, Hillary, not Bill, was the piqata of the day.

Hitchens whacked the first lady for maintaining a “split personality” as she shifts between “strong woman” (such as when she recalled Morris to the White House) and “weak sob sister” (such as when she attributed her hazy recollection of her suspicious commodities deal to the fact she was pregnant at the time). He compared her unfavorably with Eleanor Roosevelt. FDR’s wife, he argued, tried “to get her husband to do the unpopular thing, the uncommercial thing” — supporting the Spanish loyalists besieged by Franco’s fascists, abolishing Jim Crow.

Hitchens further criticized Clinton for having “justified” her husband’s brutish infidelities, and for displaying an “abnormal want of curiosity” about Juanita Broaddrick’s charge that Bill raped her years ago. But where Clinton has set new heights of mendacity, Hitchens concluded, is in the field of ethnic pandering. Noting that all politics in New York is “global” — by which he meant kowtowing to ethnic groups — Hitchens asserted that “never” has this game “been played with more cynicism than Mrs. Clinton has brought to it.” His evidence: her miscues regarding Palestine, the amnesty for the jailed Puerto Rican activists, the St. Patrick’s Day parade and a Pakistani-American fund-raiser. Hitchens’ claim that her pandering is abnormal may be something of a stretch. He often argues in his bad-boy way that hate is healthy, if directed at the proper people and institutions.If that is true, then regarding Hillary, Hitchens is in the pink.

Hillary’s critics from the right are deeply offended by the first lady for other reasons, though they had some difficulty explaining all of them. Milton, the author of “The First Partner: Hillary Rodham Clinton,” observed that it was not Clinton’s marriage that differentiated her from other first ladies — plenty of past presidents have been cheats. But “the thing that makes her different is … hyperactivity. She’s very excessive in everything she does.” But wouldn’t that describe other politicians — and Nancy Reagan, who was a control freak when it came to looking out for her husband? —

In trying to define “what riles people so much” about the Clintons, Milton maintained that when Bill and Hillary are accused of wrongdoing, their immediate response is to blame someone else, that they have no sense of shame. Ronald Reagan didn’t exactly take responsibility for Iran-contra. Newt Gingrich, now an AEI fellow, hasn’t expressed shame for his extramarital affair. “Not that she should get down on her knees and grovel,” Milton commented, “but maybe say, ‘I went a little overboard when I blamed the Monica stories on a vast right-wing conspiracy.’” Then Milton took another tack: “She’s so bossy … A lot of people have trouble with that.” Is that really what has the Hillary-haters so upset?

The day’s last panel, “Hillary Rodham Clinton as a Feminist Heroine,” produced the most anti-Hillary passion. Christina Hoff Sommers, author of “Who Stole Feminism?” began her case against Clinton by recounting and mocking a meeting of successful female academics who identified themselves as “angry and struggling” and whom Sommers tagged “gender feminists” — people who consider American women to be “tyrannized and victimized” by men. “I believe the first lady is in their camp,” Sommers said, though she acknowledged that Clinton didn’t attend that meeting and doesn’t use the buzz words of the “gender feminists.” But Sommers still says Clinton is one of them. The evidence? She has complained about the inequity in pay between men and women and the exclusion of women from major medical clinical trials.

And there’s more evidence: Clinton likes the work of Eve Ensler, author of the one-woman play “The Vagina Monologues.” Ensler, Sommers told the crowd, was once described as a “loony feminist” by a British journalist. From all this, Sommers has deduced that while Clinton “does not openly write or speak” as a “gender feminist,” she is indeed a “committed and zealous gender feminist.”

Phyllis Schlafly, the social conservative leader, derided Clinton as “a very dull subject. She is not an interesting person. She has not accomplished anything of note … She is just a housewife … She made her money and built her career the old-fashioned way — she married it.” But, at the same time, “She’s a ‘macho-feminist’ … with a lust for revenge,” who “quarterbacked the [Monica] coverup.” In other words, a boring marital appendage who is Machiavelli in drag.

Ingraham, the cable-TV chatterer who has her own anti-Hillary book due out soon, attempted to put forth a more sophisticated argument. “I don’t think she’s evil, she’s just wrong” — from her “family politics to her beliefs about gun control.” Yet her marriage and views on education are not the real problems, Ingraham said. “What’s most dangerous about Hillary is not Whitewater, the billing records … The most dangerous thing is her seeming inability not to be self-reflective and talk about her mistakes.” Is that what bugs people about Clinton? She doesn’t ‘fess up to her errors? “Conservatives get in trouble when they start making Hillary personal,” Ingraham said. But when Karen Burstein, a former New York judge who supports Clinton, accused Ingraham of demanding that Clinton expose “a kind of pain inside her” that Ingraham does not demand other politicians reveal, Ingraham protested. She merely wants Clinton to “explain her life’s choices,” such as her marriage. “Was this a political bargain [between her and Bill]?” That sounds awfully personal. At this point, Lynne Cheney, an AEI fellow, exclaimed, “It drives me crazy when Hillary acts like a happy wife.” And Ingraham added, “It’s a sham.” It does sound like the personal is what’s bothering them.

But that’s not true forHorowitz, who in a 50-minute-long closing statement, branded Clinton “America’s foremost leftist.” And, he informed the dwindling crowd, “The first truth about leftist missionaries … is that they are liars.” In fact, “To be progressive is the deepest narcissism.” He claimed that “today’s leftists” — including Clinton — are the “ideological heirs of Stalinist progressives.” But Clinton and her band have gotten cagier: They seek “total power” and the opportunity to create a social utopia through “incremental ways.” She will even “sound like a conservative” if she has to.

Anyone who sat through the entire day could be forgiven if he or she ended up confused. To rightist Horowitz, Clinton is a single-minded messianic socialist to be feared. To leftist Hitchens, she is a two-faced, unprincipled 1960s sellout to be despised. To Milton, she is an overly ambitious and pushy woman to be scorned for having cut some sort of deal with her husband. To Sommers, she is a dangerous, in-the-closet feminist to be exposed. To Schlafly, she is a traditional wife who won’t own up to that. To Ingraham, she is a first lady who dares stay mum about her marriage — but we don’t want to get personal. There is much for which Clinton deserves criticism. Remember the health-care plan she botched? She also occasionally has been slippery with the truth and placed politics ahead of principle — as do most pols. But she does push her critics to excess.

“People say I’m obsessed about the Clintons,” Hitchens quipped delightfully. “I’m not. I just think about them all the time.”

For all their thinking about Clinton, her most vociferous detractors cannot agree on what ticks them off about her. But for each, the ever-changing Clinton — who, over the years, has slipped in and out of many different roles — offers much ammunition and is a highly convenient and inviting target. As she campaigns for the Senate, she will remain within their crisscrossing lines of fire.

Powell is an interesting, perhaps unique, phenomenon in public life: an untouchable. I discovered this firsthand a few years back when I broke a story indicating that Powell had lied as part of an Iran-Contra coverup. The evidence against him was strong, yet the media largely ignored the story. One news network even killed a report on it. The incident showed how tough it is to question Powell’s sterling reputation. It also revealed that the retired general does have warts that, should he leap into the spotlight as a politician, could come into view.

In 1993, after nearly seven years of work, Lawrence Walsh, the Iran-Contra independent counsel, produced his massive final report. Buried within it were a few paragraphs devoted to Powell, who had been Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger’s senior military assistant when the Reagan administration was secretly trading arms with Iran. As part of his investigation, Walsh had brought a case against Weinberger. Consequently, Powell came under the scrutiny of Walsh’s investigators.

In 1987, Walsh had requested that Weinberger hand over any records relevant to the Iran-Contra affair. In reply, Weinberger produced a modest amount of material, nothing incriminating. Then, in 1991, Walsh’s investigators discovered that Weinberger had sent thousands of pages of diary and meeting notes he had kept while defense secretary to the Library of Congress. This material showed that, contrary to his sworn testimony, Weinberger knew in advance that the Reagan administration was shipping weapons to Iran in exchange for hostages. A grand jury indicted Weinberger for concealing these notes from Congress and from the independent counsel and for lying about his knowledge of the arms deal.

Powell played a small but key role in the Weinberger episode. In 1987, seven investigators from the House and Senate Iran-Contra committees questioned Powell in the White House situation room. In the course of this sworn deposition, Powell was asked a standard question: Did Weinberger keep a diary? The investigators wanted to know if documentary evidence existed that could help them unravel the scandal.

Powell replied, “The secretary, to my knowledge, did not keep a diary.” But, as Walsh’s investigators found out four years later, Weinberger had kept an extensive diary. Perhaps it was possible Powell had not known about Weinberger’s notes. But in 1992, when Weinberger was under investigation for having lied about the notes, Powell had a different story to tell about his old boss’s diaries.

In a sworn affidavit submitted to Walsh’s office by Weinberger’s attorney, Powell said, “During the period I worked with Secretary Weinberger … I observed on his desk a small pad of white paper, approximately 5″ by 7″. He would jot down on this pad in abbreviated form various calls and events during the day. I viewed it as his personal diary.” In a subsequent interview with Walsh’s office, Powell revealed that he even knew that Weinberger had stored his diary notes “in his desk on the right side.”

Powell’s 1992 statement contradicted his 1987 statement. But he wasn’t ratting out Weinberger. In fact, he was supporting him, for Weinberger was then claiming that he had not conspired to hide his notes, that his diaries had not been a secret to those around him, that his failure to turn over thousands of pages was merely an oversight. Weinberger’s line was: See, everyone knew about them. Powell was backing him up.

Walsh was perturbed by the conflict in Powell’s statements. How could Powell in 1992 have a clear and specific memory of diaries, when in 1987 he had said Weinberger kept no diaries? One of these statements, each sworn, had to be false. Walsh even uncovered evidence showing that Powell had helped Weinberger maintain his diary notes.

Walsh might have explored this troubling contradiction during Weinberger’s trial, for Powell was on the witness list. But on Dec. 24, 1992, days before the trial was to begin, a lame-duck President Bush pardoned Weinberger and five other Iran-Contra figures. “Powell was going to be an important witness during the Weinberger trail,” says a lawyer who worked with Walsh. “What would have transpired we’ll never know.”

So what was Walsh to do about this Powell business? In his final report, Walsh noted that Powell’s 1987 deposition statement “hardly constituted full disclosure.” Walsh maintained that it had been “designed to protect Weinberger” and characterized it as “at least misleading.” But, Walsh added, “It would have been difficult to prove that [Powell's 1987] deposition testimony was intentionally false.” Thus, it had not warranted prosecution.

“This was a slippery issue for us,” says another former staffer for Walsh. “Because of who Powell was and because the lie did not have to do with his own coverup, but was part of Caspar Weinberger’s coverup. Even prosecuting Weinberger was difficult for us. But this wasn’t a small matter for us.”

Powell was not happy with how Walsh characterized his statements. Prior to the release of the report, he submitted a letter to the court overseeing Walsh and blasted Walsh for having “seen fit to impugn my honor.” Powell maintained there were no discrepancies between his 1987 testimony and his 1992 affidavit. This is how he explained it:

“I was asked by congressional staff in 1987 whether Mr. Weinberger kept any records at all of his daily activities. I replied truthfully that he took notes, but did not have a diary — a permanent record summarizing important events. My 1992 affidavit, on the other hand, focused in depth on the notes I said he took and my understanding that the notes were personal … I described his notes [in 1992] as a diary to convey the idea that they were private and personal, as opposed to an official record.”

Can you make sense of that? Actually, in 1987, Powell had not forthrightly told the investigators that Weinberger maintained notes. Powell only said that “whatever notes [Weinberger] kept, I don’t know how he uses them or what he does with them.” The clear implication of Powell’s 1987 answers was that Powell had no idea whether Weinberger maintained a written record of his daily dealings. Yet in 1992, he was full of details about the Weinberger notes, and he even referred to them as a “diary.”

When Walsh’s report was released, no one in the media appeared to have taken notice of his criticism of Powell. But in 1995, when Powell was flirting with the idea of running for president, I flipped through Walsh’s report, found the passage on Powell, and thought I had a hot-shit story: the all-American patriot — a man described by historian Stephen Ambrose as “defined by the word ‘trust’” — caught in a lie. When I called Powell’s spokesman for a response, I received an answer so convoluted I could not put it in the article. (People would think, I explained to an editor, that it was a typographical mistake.)

When the article appeared, I expected other media to pick up the story. No one called, except a friend who was an investigative reporter at a TV network. He asked for the supporting material and received an OK from his superiors to pursue the story. He filmed a segment, and it was scheduled to air. Then the story was killed from above. A message was indirectly conveyed to the reporter: this was not serious enough a charge to justify taking a swing at Powell and causing him to be angry with the network. After all, the network might want to book him in the future.

In the time since, Powell’s contradictory statements have received cursory mention in a few press profiles. But his part in the scandal escaped thorough media scrutiny. Imagine the media response if an independent counsel accused Hillary Clinton of making misleading statements to protect a friend under investigation.

It does not seem likely Powell will sign up as Bush’s sidekick. He has shown no interest in the job. And why should a fellow of his stature — with his brand name power — tie his future to the Bush campaign and its iffy prospects? If Powell does desire the presidency, he could credibly enter the next presidential race without having served as No. 2 to Bush. He also could waltz easily into the secretary of state or defense slots in a Bush administration. Should Powell decide to enter politics or seek a Cabinet post, it’s doubtful his bit part in the Iran-Contra affair will get in the way. But will his free ride with the media continue?

Back on the campaign trail, he will continue to portray himself as the No. 1 family guy: a devoted father, a loving husband, a loyal son. “The most important job,” he says time and again, “is to love your children … It’s important for a president to say that repeatedly.”

Bush has hardly been shy about using his own family in appealing for votes. Though neither of the Georges, father or son, are known for self-analysis, it doesn’t take a therapist to see that a key motivation for George the Sequel is a desire to avenge the honor of his father, who was humiliated at the polls by the Democrats eight years ago.

But there is a specter haunting Bush’s effort to be both Mr. Tolerance and the Good Son, and that is Pat Robertson, the evangelist who founded the Christian Coalition.

At the Wiesenthal Center, Bush declared himself a foot soldier in the never-ending battle against hate and bigotry: “We must teach our children to respect those whose ancestry or religion is different from their own,” he proclaimed.

Robertson, for starters, could use such instruction. In 1991, the televangelist said Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Methodists represent “the spirit of the Antichrist.” He also maintained that “liberal Jews” were mounting “an ongoing attempt to undermine the public strength of Christianity.” He has repeatedly called Hinduism “devil worship.”

Not exactly the language of tolerance, nor, for that matter, “compassionate conservatism.” Yet after John McCain blasted Robertson for leading conservative Christians down the path to bigotry, Bush, looking to bolster his standing with religious right voters, quickly sided with Robertson and chided McCain for daring to criticize this upright Republican.

Robertson, after all, had been assisting Bush’s campaign in Michigan by launching blistering taped phone messages against McCain. And Robertson’s one-time lieutenant, Ralph Reed, is a key consultant for Bush. When Robertson’s calls backfired in Michigan, the Bush campaign asked him to cool it. But that was a tactical decision, and Bush has not chosen to publicly repudiate Robertson, and he seems unlikely to do so since he wants (and needs) the votes of the Christian conservatives who compose up to a third of the GOP electorate. Besides, look what happened to John McCain when he took on Robertson.

So Bush the Tolerant won’t hold Robertson’s mean and excessive rhetoric against him. But Bush also has a personal reason for excommunicating Robertson from his campaign, however. In 1992, Robertson published a bizarre book called “The New World Order.” In this barely coherent tract, Robertson claimed there was a global (if elusive) conspiracy involving the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, other policy elites, secret societies and New Agers.

The goal of this nefarious coalition was to impose a new world order that would wipe out national sovereignty, foment a “complete redistribution of wealth,” and bring about the “elimination of Christianity.” The key to penetrating the plot, Robertson argued, was to see that the Gulf War that had been waged and won by President Bush was, in fact, “a setup.”

This was Robertson’s reasoning (using the word loosely): “Powerful people of the world wanted a situation that was so obviously dangerous to the entire world that all nations would join together to deal with it … [a situation] that would cause the nations of the world to forget for a time their own claims of sovereignty in order to submerge their interests into that of a worldwide authority such as the United Nations.”

See what was going on? The conspirators cleverly and covertly had orchestrated the origins of the Persian Gulf crisis and then used Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait as a pretense for the first step toward a world government that would eventually obliterate Christianity and bring about all the other horrors Robertson feared.

Robertson revealed that the term “new world order,” which Bush used to justify the Gulf War, has been for the past 200 years “the code phrase of those who desired to destroy the Christian faith … They wish to replace it with an occult-inspired world socialist dictatorship.”

Robertson based his unorthodox insights on his reading of the Bible. The anti-Saddam coalition, he observed, “was the first time since Babel that all of the nations of the earth acted in concert with one another.” And as God showed with the Tower of Babel, he is not fond of nations toiling together.

Robertson didn’t pick on President Bush alone. He accused Jimmy Carter of being in cahoots with the secret schemers. So, too, was his vice president, Walter Mondale, for, as Robertson noted with suspicion, Mondale’s brother had once signed a humanist manifesto. Robertson also pointed at Henry Kissinger, Bush foreign policy aide Brent Scowcroft, and other prominent figures in the foreign-policy establishment

In his book, Robertson forged numerous creative connections. In the first chapter, he lumped President Bush in with a famous musician who asked people to “imagine” a time of no religion, no possessions, no heaven, no hell and one world. “George Bush and John Lennon,” he wrote, “are not alone in championing a new world order.” By the way, Robertson noted, so did Adolf Hitler. And who did Robertson peg as the primary force behind this dangerous, anti-Christian new world order? The devil himself!

According to Robertson, President Bush was, wittingly or not, “carrying out the mission and mouthing the phrases of a tightly knit cabal whose goal is nothing less than a new order for the human race under the domination of Lucifer and his followers.”

So Robertson literally called President Bush a tool of Satan. Yet eight years later, Robertson was campaigning for the son of this tool of Satan, George W. How could Robertson be certain that W. wasn’t in on this new world order conspiracy, picking up where his dad left off? After all, Father Bush has been giving W. plenty of campaign advice. And George W. is a member of the Methodist Church, which according to Robertson is in the pocket of the Antichrist.

It’s foolish to expect consistency, let alone logic, from Robertson. He must have some way of explaining his alliance with W. Perhaps he took George W. Bush’s inability to name foreign leaders as a sign Bush II was incapable of building the much-dreaded one-world government.

The question remains, which is more troubling — Robertson’s willingness to work for the offspring of Satan? Or George W. Bush’s decision to welcome the assistance of a man who has preached intolerance and called his father a pawn of the Antichrist? What does all of this say about W.’s loyalty to his father, his family values and his commitment to tolerance?

More to the point, if any candidate accepts the open support of an outright bigot who accuses the candidate’s own father of being part of a Satanic conspiracy to destroy Christianity and enslave billions of people, what won’t that candidate do to win an election?

It’s a good bet we’ll find out between now and election day.

There’s also another explanation for the Bradley fizzle — a one-word explanation: “Victory.” Not as in, Bradley didn’t achieve victory, but as in the title of the novel by Joseph Conrad. In the debate before the New Hampshire primary, Bradley revealed that “Victory” is one of his favorite books. Anyone who reads this novel can obtain an insight into what now appears to be the first major career failure in Bradley’s adult life.

First, some background. Last spring, I traveled with Bradley during a three-day swing through New Hampshire. He remained distant from the few reporters who were accompanying him; there was little, if any, informal chit-chat. During the daily 15-minute media availability — a mini news conference — he treated most queries as if they were trick questions. After the final event — a speech on race at a prep school — Bradley met with us in a classroom. We asked about his ideas for combating racism and his strategy for taking on Gore. Then Eric Hauser, his press secretary, said there was time for one last question, a short one.

“What’s your favorite novel?” I piped up. I was genuinely curious — Bradley’s a smart guy. It would be interesting to know what he reads. But he scowled and reacted as if I had asked him his preferred sex act. If he named one book now, he said, and six months later referred to another, the media would criticize him for flip-flopping. I promised not to do so. “How do you know there’s just one?” he shot back. “Feel free to name a few,” I replied.

By now, I felt we had entered into a duel. “What’s the point?” he asked, “To figure out what literary character I identify with?”

Bradley paused for a moment, as if he was formulating an answer. Then he shook his head. “No, I’m not going into that,” he said.

The man who was asking to be placed in a position where he could launch a nuclear attack and destroy the planet was refusing to tell voters what books he fancied. This exchange became part of Bradley lore. Subsequent stories on his penchant for privacy referred to this incident. More importantly, here was an early indication that Bradley was not willing to do what it takes to be president. Forget making a strong case for dethroning Gore. He couldn’t even open up an inch.

But, in retrospect, perhaps it was a wise move after all, for if anyone had gotten hold of that privileged information, they could have seen that Bradley was finished from the start.

At that debate in New Hampshire, CNN’s Judy Woodruff pressed Bradley on the books that have influenced him, and he finally caved. With a trace of petulance, he said, “Well. Judy, if you want me to share a little bit with you, I will. I’ll give you two books that I like. One is “Victory” by Joseph Conrad. I like that because there’s something in there by a character named Heyst who says, ‘Woe be it to the man who has not learned while young to put his trust in life.’ Now what does that tell you about me, running for president of the United States? It tells you that I’ve read the book.”

But Bradley’s reference to this novel was telling. (He never named the other book.) He got the quote mostly — but not exactly — right. It occurs two pages from the end. And it is the words of protagonist Axel Heyst, shortly before he commits suicide. “Victory,” written by the author of “Heart of Darkness” and “Lord Jim” and published in 1915, focuses on Heyst, the representative of a bankrupt European coal company who lives in solitude at a shut-down mining site on an island in what is now Indochina.

Heyst is a marginally sympathetic character. He is a loner disengaged from much of life. He lives, Conrad wrote, “as if he were perched on the highest peak of the Himalayas.” One associate calls Heyst a “utopist.” He has, Conrad noted, an “unattached, floating existence.” Another associate says of Heyst, “He had always had a taste for solitude … He isn’t the sort of man one can speak familiarly with.” Heyst is a brooder who cooked up an unrealistic plan to extract coal where no one else would think of trying.

The book is not Conrad’s best work; it’s a bit melodramatic. While visiting a trading port, Heyst helps a young British woman named Alma escape from a traveling, all-woman orchestra (the “band was not making music; it was simply murdering silence”), and he brings her back to his island. With this action, Heyst starts to involve himself in the world beyond his hermitic environs. But, as Conrad observed, “Those dreamy spectators of the world’s agitation are terrible once the desire to act gets hold of them. They lower their heads and charge a wall with an amazing serenity.”

Sound familiar, Senator?

Alma — whom Heyst calls Lena — and Heyst (“a masterpiece of aloofness”) fall in love, and Heyst gains a partner-in-solitude and a semblance of a real life. The plot turns when bandits, misinformed that Heyst is sitting on a treasure, arrive on the island and plot to kill him. Heyst’s Chinese servant has purloined his revolver, and Heyst is left defenseless. Yet even when threatened, he remains dispassionate. He tries to outwit the bandits, but his feeble plan goes awry.

It is Lena who, by seducing one of the intruders, saves the day. Still, she ends up shot inadvertently and killed. “For you,” she says to Heyst, as she expires. And how does Heyst honor her ultimate sacrifice? He burns down their conjugal bungalow with himself in it.

“Victory” is not an inspirational tale. This book is a downer. I hope that Bradley doesn’t really identify with Heyst. It is puzzling that Bradley would cite this novel as personally significant. Perhaps he considers it a cautionary tale about what can happen to someone who tries to live by his own rules, on his own island, apart from conventional realities. If so, he did not apply that lesson to his campaign. He adopted an above-it-all attitude to politics and campaigning that was not useful for an insurgent effort that, in essence, sought to mount a coup against a party leader.

Bradley’s campaign has in fact proved one of the better lines of the book: “It is not easy to shake off the spell of island life.”