Bush Attacks Gore, Citing 'Pattern of Embellishments' By ALISON MITCHELL ORLANDO, Fla., Sept. 23 At the end of a campaign swing that was intended to focus on issues, Gov. George W. Bush stepped up his personal criticisms of Vice President Al Gore today, accusing him of "misleading Americans" through a "pattern of embellishments and sudden reversals." Mr. Bush assailed Mr. Gore in a speech he delivered by satellite to the state committee of the Pennsylvania Republican Party. He cited a series of incidents involving the Gore campaign last week that he said provided telling insights into the vice president's character. "My opponent has unfortunately spent the week misleading Americans," Mr. Bush said. "His misrepresentations are serious business not the legitimate debate of political disagreements. They are a disturbing pattern of embellishments and sudden reversals." Mr. Bush also took aim again at President Clinton's decision to release oil from the nation's emergency reserves, portraying the move as political opportunism. The reserve, Mr. Bush said, "was created for America's national security, not for the vice president's political security." Mr. Gore had called for the reserve to be tapped just a day before Mr. Clinton acted. Mr. Bush seized on Mr. Gore's assertion at a news conference that he had been involved in discussions about the strategic oil reserve in its early stages. "Just yesterday, there he went again," Mr. Bush said, evoking Ronald Reagan's well-known rebuttal of Jimmy Carter in a 1980 campaign debate. "He claimed he was involved in the very invention of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve," Mr. Bush said. "The problem is the reserve was first established in 1975, two years before Al Gore even went to the United States Congress." More broadly, Mr. Bush offered a week's worth of examples to ridicule Mr. Gore. He brought up matters as varied as Mr. Gore's attendance at a Hollywood fund-raiser, at which the vice presi...
