ALT LAKE CITY - Texas Governor George W. Bush saluted an Air Force pilot shot down over Bosnia in 1995 and asked him yesterday to spread the word ''there's a new commander-in-chief on the way.''
Bush also spoke to a crowd of about 300 after meeting with governors of six Western states. Earlier, he met Air Force pilot Scott O'Grady, who spent several days behind enemy lines while badly injured and without food and water after being shot down.
Bush's own military record was called into question last week when reports surfaced he might have received preferential treatment when he was accepted into an Air Force National Guard training program during the Vietnam War.
In his remarks, Bush promised ''a season of hope after years of cynicism'' and vowed to restore ''dignity and honor'' to the presidency.
He also questioned the Clinton administration's responsibility for the economic boom of the 1990s, tweaking Vice President Al Gore, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, in the process.
''If you listen to those back there in Washington, D.C., they sound like they created prosperity,'' Bush said. ''They no more created prosperity than they invented the Internet.''
Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne said the hour-long, closed-door meeting with the Republican governors provided an opportunity for them to ''roll up the shirt sleeves and talk about the issues that are important to the West.''
Among those discussed were public land and growth management, water and grazing rights, timber and mining claims, and nuclear waste storage, he said.
''If there was one fundamental theme, it is the aspect of states' rights and the fact that we don't need the command and control from Washington, D.C.,'' said Kempthorne.
''He just believes firmly in states rights,'' Montana Governor Marc Racicot said of Bush. ''He begins with a presumption of trust in the good sense and honest purpose of human beings and as a result, when you begin that way, you tend to delegate.''
Utah Governor Mike Leavitt introduced Bush to the crowd of about 300 supporters as a candidate who understands Western issues. ''The West is his home. Not just a place he flies over on his way to somewhere else,'' Leavitt said.
Bush told the crowd education would be his top priority but said it should be up to local governments to chart the best curriculum.
''It is not the role of the federal government to tell states how to run their welfare programs and education,'' Bush said.
