AGINAW, Michigan - Shaken by the disclosure of his 1976 drunken -driving arrest in Kennebunkport, Maine, George W. Bush scrambled yesterday to shift public attention toward the origins of the news story, calling the episode ''dirty politics'' in the final hours of the closest presidential race in decades.
But further questions arose about the handling of the incident, including whether Bush misled a reporter who inquired about his arrest record in 1998. At the same time, campaign aides defended the decision not to admit to the arrest earlier, rebuffing suggestions that they had made a basic strategic mistake.
The blizzard of activity surrounding the arrest overshadowed a critical swing through the battleground of Michigan, where Bush, staging back-to-back rallies, appeared highly confident but subdued. He referred to the incident only in passing, telling a sympathetic crowd he had ''learned from'' his indiscretions.
''I've made mistakes in my life, but I'm proud to tell you, I've learned from those mistakes,'' Bush told cheering supporters in Grand Rapids, after repeating his belief he will triumph on Tuesday.
But later in the day, Bush sounded much less contrite, blaming the round of bad publicity on the ''Democrat and partisan in Maine'' who told a reporter about his arrest, which occurred as he drove home from a bar with a blood alcohol level of .10, above the legal level in Maine and in most states today.
''I think most Americans are going to come to the conclusion that this is dirty politics, last-minute politics,'' Bush said in an interview with Fox News.
The story broke late Thursday after a TV reporter in Maine received the 1976 court docket from Tom Connolly, a Democratic activist and lawyer in Portland. Connolly made no apologies for passing along the documents after being alerted to their existence by a state judge. He said it was ''not a dirty trick to tell the truth.''
The Gore campaign continued to deny any involvement, issuing a statement asking the Bush campaign to ''stop hurling charges and start accepting responsibility.''
''We categorically deny any involvement,'' the Gore statement said. Gore, who admitted to speeding tickets while driving but never an arrest, said: ''I'm not engaged in personal attacks. He is and has been...I want to talk about the issues.''
Surrogates for Gore, however, had no such reservations. Senator Tom Harkin, an outspoken Iowa Democrat, said the Republican's failure to disclose the arrest raised questions about his credibility and whether other brushes with the law are still undisclosed.
As the commotion raged on the airwaves throughout the day, it had a noticeable effect on the Bush campaign, where aides were on the defensive, appearing tense and at times unsure of their next step. Communications director Karen Hughes, after confronting a reporter aboard the campaign plane about a 1998 interview with Bush, was besieged during an impromptu news conference on an airport tarmac with questions about whether the Republican candidate had lied.
At issue was an interview two years ago with Wayne Slater, the Dallas Morning News bureau chief in the state capital, Austin. According to Slater, Bush said he had not been arrested other than for stealing a Christmas wreath as a college student in 1968, then began to reconsider his answer, indicating he might admit to another incident. But his press secretary cut him off.
''I asked him, `Have you ever been arrested after 1968?' And he said, `No,''' Slater said. ''Then I asked him, `How about before 1968?' And he was getting ready to acknowledge something. He started, I think, to tell me something. That's when Karen jumped in. He was clearly getting ready to say more.''
The interview was never published in the Morning News, but an account of it appeared in The New Republic magazine last November, as part of a cover story about Hughes. Although she did not dispute the story at the time, Hughes yesterday said Slater's conversation with Bush was off the record, then changed course, saying Bush never made the remark at all.
The dispute over the interview - indeed, over the single word ''no'' - fueled further speculation that the campaign was caught off guard by the story, having misjudged the effect of keeping the arrest under wraps. Bush has said he wanted the matter private to protect his twin daughters, now 18-year-old college freshmen.
At various times during his six years in public life, Bush, 54, has faced tough questions about his past drinking habits and partying lifestyle, now a standard chapter of his biography.
But he has never volunteered details.
''When I was young, I did a lot of foolish things,'' he said in 1996. ''But I will tell you this, I urge people not to drink and drive. It's an important message for all people to hear. I don't drink, and I hope others don't drink and drive as well.''
At the time of his arrest, Bush was 30, a recent graduate of Harvard Business School and a Texas oilman, on his way to running for US Congress two years later. Hughes said the ''youthful indiscretion'' was more a matter of lifestyle than specific age. ''It was before he was married. It was before he had children,'' Hughes said.
Asked whether Bush risked his credibility with such vague answers about his past, Hughes replied: ''Throughout this campaign, he has been very forthcoming with the American people that he made mistakes as a youth, that he did things as a youth he is not proud of.''
She quickly turned the tables, questioning the propriety of such a story surfacing in the final days of a campaign that several national polls have suggested will end with a victory for Bush. Raising the possibility that it could backfire for Democrats, Hughes accused their opponents of practicing the same brand of personal politics that Bush so often decries on the campaign trail.
''I think the American people are tired of this kind of gotcha politics, tired of this kind of last-minute dirty tricks,'' Hughes said. ''And I think the Democrats owe the American people an explanation.''
Which Democrats were responsible remained in dispute. Despite Gore's denials, Republican sources launched a whisper campaign against Chris Lehane, the Gore press secretary who grew up in Maine, and his sister, Erin Lehane, now a lawyer in Portland.
Unwilling to believe Erin Lehane's connections were coincidence, angry Bush supporters flooded her law firm, Curtis Thaxter Stevens Broder & Micoleau, with vitriolic e-mails and phone calls. Kenneth Curtis, the former two-term Democratic governor of Maine and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, also works at the firm, prompting further rumors. FBI agents were posted outside the firm last night.
But both Erin Lehane and Curtis denied any role. In an interview with the Globe, Erin Lehane said that although she and her brother were raised in Kennebunk, not far from the site of the accident, she had never met Connolly, who identified himself as the source almost immediately. She described rumors to the contrary as ''conspiracy theories.''
Heading into the final three days of campaigning, both candidates vowed to steer clear of the matter to the extent possible, focusing instead on the issues of the campaign. Bush tried yesterday to make the condition of the military his main topic, to little avail. Aides did not even bother distributing a stack of pamphlets about his vision to reporters, instead leaving them on the floor of an event auditorium in Grand Rapids.
But Republicans remained confident the news would have little impact, least of all on his core supporters. Michigan Governor John Engler, a Bush supporter, called it ''a non-event,'' echoing Bush's own mother, Barbara Bush, who said the hullabaloo was ''much ado about nothing.''
Globe Staff members Raphael Lewis, reporting from Boston, and Glen Johnson, traveling with Gore in Iowa, contributed to this report.
