EDFORD, N.H. - Perhaps it was just wishful thinking. Or maybe it was a son's desire to finish something his father had once begun.
But in his debut debate of the 2000 presidential race, Governor George W. Bush of Texas sounded for a split second as if he was advocating the assassination of a world leader, an absolute no-no under both federal law and presidential executive order.
In fact, Bush may well have meant it. During an interview with the BBC on Nov. 18, the Texas governor also seemed to suggest that Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq, needed to be dealt with in a mortal fashion.
''No one had envisioned Saddam, at least at that point in history, no one envisioned him still standing,'' Bush said, during a conversation about the Persian Gulf War. ''It's time to finish the task.''
Thursday night, when asked what he would do about Hussein, his father's nemesis during the war to free Kuwait, Bush was a tad belligerent. He would not ease sanctions, he said. He would not negotiate with Hussein, he said. He would help opposition groups, he continued, and he would make ''darn sure'' that Hussein lived up to agreements he signed in the early '90s.
''And if I found in any way, shape, or form that he was developing weapons of mass destruction, I'd take him out,'' Bush declared. ''I'm surprised he's still there. I think a lot of other people are as well.''
When the moderator, Brit Hume, inquired further, Bush either pulled back, clarified, or contradicted himself. ''Take him out?'' Hume asked.
''Take out the weapons of mass destruction,'' Bush responded.
Yesterday morning, Bush was asked again about Hussein, and how he planned to take out Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
''That's up for Saddam Hussein to figure out,'' Bush said during an early morning news conference, declining to elaborate. ''He doesn't need to be building them. ... He just needs to know I'll take them out. It's important for a future commander in chief to state our intentions and the means will be evident to him.''
Several times over the past couple of days, Bush preferred to brush off direct questions rather than engage in discussions. When asked at the debate about his father's expertise on foreign affairs and skill in holding together the Gulf War coalition, Bush ignored the question about his relative lack of experience. Instead, he talked about what it takes to be a leader.
And yesterday, when told that Steve Forbes had questioned why Bush would not talk about his activities as a young adult, Bush refused to enter the fray on old questions about drinking and drugs. ''I've talked about that all I'm going to talk about,'' he said, his voice clipped.
But all in all, the Texas governor was feeling good yesterday after his debut debate that featured him as the top target of his Republican rivals.
He told about 300 businesspeople at the New England Council's ''politics and eggs'' breakfast that he was feeling ''hard-boiled'' rather than ''scrambled'' after the experience.
Asked about the Manchester Union Leader's endorsement of Forbes, Bush feigned shock and disappointment.
''Darn it!'' he exclaimed. ''I thought I had a chance.''
And he didn't seem terribly bothered that the conservative newspaper also called him ''an empty suit.'' Instead, he said, the American people will make their judgment themselves.
''The voters have got good wisdom,'' he said. ''They see through all of the spin and obfuscation through the course of the campaign.''
