omething may be rotten in the state of Texas.
A whiff of something odiferous is wafting out of Austin, even riper than the scents of methane from the cattle pens and sulfur from the natural gas burn-offs.
Two key figures from a Keystone Kops 1986 political bugging scandal in Texas are now on the headquarters staff of Governor George W. Bush. The foreman of Bush's presidential campaign is Karl Rove. One of his deputies is Mark McKinnon. They have been alleging that the Gore campaign is pulling dirty tricks by spying on Bush's Austin headquarters.
As it turns out, Democrats in Texas remember when this same pair were hip-deep in similar allegations in the 1986 Texas governor's race, when the two were on opposite sides.
That year Rove, as campaign manager for Republican William Clements, claimed to have discovered a listening device hidden behind a red, white, and blue needlepoint hanging on Rove's office wall. It was the size of a matchbox, and Rove said it had been discovered by a security firm he hired to sweep his headquarters.
McKinnon was Rove's opposite number in the camp of Democratic Governor Mark White, a former Texas attorney general. McKinnon claimed that Rove probably planted the bug himself and then announced it to smear the Democrats. There was a lot of bravado about dueling lie detector tests.
The timing was also suspicious. Rove claimed to have discovered the bug only hours before the only televised debate of that campaign. The stink got worse when the owner of the security firm Rove hired refused to take a lie detector test ''for personal reasons,'' reported the AP at the time.
It may come as no surprise that Rove was a disciple of the late Lee Atwater, whose deathbed conversion to Catholicism and public contrition for his dirty tricks came after he helped the campaign of George Bush the Elder savage Michael Dukakis.
Atwater's spirit lives on in the Bush campaign. George W. was another Bush '88 operative who learned at the cowboy boots of the master. Dubbya's office was right across the hall from Atwater's, and Rove is on record as being an Atwater disciple.
Rove lost no time in claiming that the Democrats had the most to gain by bugging his office. He called it ''Texasgate,'' natch. But he avoided saying he had proof. McKinnon, now his fellow camper in the Bush camp, denounced Rove then, claiming that Rove's suspicions were ''a bunch of bull'' and worse. McKinnon claimed that Rove's candidate was running on ''revenge ... venom.'' But that was then. Now McKinnon's name comes ahead of Rove's on the Bush payroll list. Consider this sequence of events:
The Gore campaign adviser who's helping prep Gore for his debates with Bush gets a package in the mail containing a videotape of Bush's own debate preparations plus some other material. Gore's adviser, Tom Downey, who'd been portraying Bush in Gore's mock debates, alerts the campaign chief, Bill Daley, who turns the material over to the FBI.
Rove's minions disclaim any leak from another of their staff or consultants; must be a dirty trick by the Gore people, they tell one and all. Thus entered into the campaign database the ''Mole'' story. Is there a real mole? Or is this a molehill contrived to squelch Gore's recent momentum? And was it a coincidence that this erupted just before the first TV debate? Was it a scheme concocted to put Gore off stride?
Did Rove contrive to have the videotape dispatched to Downey in hopes the Gore camp would take the cheese and not report the episode promptly to the FBI? So they could then leak the tale to friendly media outlets and catch the Gore camp red-handed? This caper ''has Karl Rove's fingerprints written all over it,'' claims Molly Beth Malcom, the Texas Democratic state chairwoman in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
There's an eerie premonition of the Bush camp's current claim that Al Gore will do anything to win. In '86 Rove pushed the exact same line: ''Finding the bug convinced me that the opposition would say anything and do anything to win an election.'' Hmmm. Isn't that a coincidence?
A junior staffer in the Gore camp was put on paid leave after apparently bragging to a friend that Gore had a mole in Bush's camp, then denying it, then admitting he'd fabricated the tale. In a betrayal worthy of Linda Tripp, the supposed friend ratted out the staffer to ABC. The Bush camp makes much of that. It's now part of the GOP's you-can't-trust-Al Gore assault. A final irony: The needlepoint hanging four feet from Rove's allegedly bugged phone in '86 was a portrait of a venerable GOP mascot: the elephant. And you know what they say: The elephant never forgets.
David Nyhan's e-mail address is nyhan@globe.com.
