WHEAT SPURNS FACTS

Imagine you are unfamiliar with the law, and there is a rule governing an obscure corner of the law that concerns an activity in which you have a keen interest and in which you're seeking guidance. Imagine further that you seek out the opinion of a congressman -- and not just any hayseed, but a bright, young, 12-year member of Congress, one who sits on the prestigious Rules Committee and who has long been marked as a putative rising star. Imagine still further that this bright and promising congressman earlier served in the legislature of the state whose rule is being interpreted.

You are going to assume his reliability, right? In most cases, absent personal knowledge of this lawmaker's unreliability, it would seem reasonable to rely on that lawmaker's word. This is the position in which all Missouri voters today find themselves. And this is where Rep. Alan Wheat (D-Kansas City) has let all Missourians down by engaging in a serious and blatant misrepresentation of the facts.

Wheat is the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate. In the fashion of today's negative television campaigns, he has gone sharply negative with allegations concerning alleged misuse of a state airplane by former Gov. John Ashcroft, the Republican candidate for the Senate, while Ashcroft was governor.

At issue is a state travel regulation acknowledged by all to have the force of law. The first time most Missourians would have become aware of this regulation ("State of Missouri Travel Rule 3") is a Wheat campaign press release dated Sept. 27, 1994, which was disseminated to news media statewide. That press release reads, in part:

"Rule 3 Officials and employees (ital) will not be (unital) allowed travel expenses away from their official domicile on state business." (Emphasis original in Wheat's press release).

This allegation about Ashcroft's misuse of state airplanes was repeated in another Wheat campaign press release dated Oct. 13, 1994. This press release was even tougher, alleging in its title headline "illegal" misuse of the airplane.

There is only one problem: In a brazen distortion of the facts that must be viewed as intentional, Wheat's press release inserts the word "not" in the middle of the crucial quoted material. That's right. The Wheat campaign release changed the meaning of the sentence 180 degrees from the literal wording of the state travel rule.

When the press releases and true copies of the unaltered state travel rules were laid before him in a visit to the Southeast Missourian this week, Wheat strenuously asserted that his press release version was a "paraphrase" of the state travel rules and that no distortion was intended, much less accomplished.

Readers may judge for themselves. The travel rules explicitly and unambiguously say "will be allowed." The Wheat campaign's version reads "will not be allowed." Who is misleading whom? Who is distorting the facts?

Wheat should be ashamed of himself and would be far better off to blame the hasty actions of young aides in a heated campaign. Instead, in the manner of so many who have spent so long in Washington, he evidently thinks he can talk his way out of this one with glib half-truths and cute evasions. His "paraphrase" story rings especially hollow.

Wheat should hark back to the lesson of the man from Independence. Harry Truman once observed, "Facts are stubborn things." In public life, there is an apt saying that goes, "Trust is the coin of the realm." No politician's credibility is enhanced by such an episode.