WASHINGTON (AFP) - George W. Bush and his White House challenger John Kerry traded shots over Iraq as the Democrats stepped up their attacks on the president's military record and fitness to command for four more years.
The latest harsh exchange came as a "tell-all" tabloid biography of the Bush family filled with gossip and jabs at the Republican's vaunted family values hit the bookshelves as an instant bestseller.
"The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty," by Kitty Kelley, features a litany of reported family peccadillos, including a headline allegation that George W. Bush snorted cocaine at Camp David during his father's presidency.
With Bush leading in the polls seven weeks before the November 2 election the two candidates found themselves flailing away once more over Iraq, where new violence Tuesday left at least 73 people dead and hundreds others wounded.
Speaking to the annual convention of the US National Guard in Las Vegas, Bush downplayed the turmoil as "ongoing acts of violence" that will not impede progress towards elections scheduled for January 2005.
And he again accused Kerry of vacillating on Iraq, saying it was critical a president "speak clearly and consistently at this time of great threat in our world, and not change positions because of expediency or pressure."
Kerry responded furiously in a statement that accused Bush of not leveling with the public about the situation in Iraq, where the US death toll has passed 1,000 and chaos was spreading.
"Things are getting worse," the Massachusetts senator said. "The situation is serious, and we need a president who will set a new direction and be straight with the American people."
The Democrats have been poking at Bush's character to counter assaults on Kerry's Vietnam War record by pro-Republican veterans that have taken a toll as the campaign heads down the final stretch.
On Tuesday, the Democrats came back with a new offensive and video aimed at highlighting "unanswered questions" regarding Bush's stint with the Texas Air National Guard three decades ago.
The effort, dubbed "Operation: Fortunate Son," sought to shift the focus onto what the Democrats call Bush's use of family connections to get a cushy National Guard position and avoid duty in Vietnam.
Democratic chairman Terry McAuliffe told a news conference the president owed an explanation to the US troops serving in Iraq and elsewhere.
"As George W. Bush continues to rely heavily on the men and women serving in the armed forces today, thanks to his failed foreign policies, he has no business lying to them about fulfilling his own duty," McAuliffe said.
Bush steered clear of the controversy in his speech to the National Guard convention, saying only he was "proud to be one" of the 19 former members of the part-time Guard who went on to be president.
Both candidates have tried to tarnish each other's military records as part of the debate over who would be more fit to lead the United States through perilous times after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
But the Democratic effort received a blow Tuesday with a new challenge to documents disclosed by CBS television last week that purportedly showed Bush using his political ties to escape some of his National Guard commitments.
The Washington Post quoted an expert used by CBS to authenticate the document as saying he confined himself to the signature at the bottom and did not look at other disputed aspects.
First Lady Laura Bush also suggested outright that the documents were a fake. But CBS has stood by the story.
While Bush was in the western United States and Kerry toured key states in the Midwest, much of the buzz Tuesday centered on the new book by Kelley, the dirt-dishing biographer of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Elizabeth Taylor.
Her 705-page work on the Bush family immediately went to the top of the Amazon.com bestseller list.
Among the alleged revelations are that the president's grandfather went on alcoholic binges, that his father had an affair with an aide and that his wife, Laura Bush, was a "go-to girl" for marijuana while in college.
But the biggest fuss has been over a passage that quotes Sharon Bush, the former wife of the president's brother Neil, as saying that George W. Bush had snorted cocaine with a brother in Camp David while the elder George Bush was president.
Even before the book appeared, the White House reacted furiously, calling the publication "politically motivated" and dismissing the allegations as "false and so trashy that even the tabloids should cringe."