In dual announcements capping a week of intense political pressure on Mr. Bush, the White House said it had decided to release all documents from the president's National Guard files and, within hours, disclosed that Mr. Bush would appear before a commission investigating the terrorist attacks.

But the hundreds of pages of National Guard files contain no new evidence and are unlikely to change the basic standoff between Mr. Bush and the Democrats, which is where, when and how often the president showed up for duty from May 1972 to May 1973.

The White House maintains that Guard payroll records, a dental exam that Mr. Bush had in Alabama and the undisputed fact that he was living there during the time in question definitively prove that he turned up for duty. Mr. Bush's critics say the documents prove only that he had his teeth checked in Alabama on Jan. 6, 1973.

The White House has been consumed for days with responding to attacks on the president's truthfulness, especially about his military service 30 years ago.

The only document in the two-inch-thick stack that puts Mr. Bush in Alabama in that period is a document that the White House released on Wednesday, a copy of a dental exam performed at Dannelly Air National Guard base in Montgomery on Jan. 6, 1973. . . .

The White House released the documents with little advance notice at 6:30 p.m., after much of the staff had left for a long holiday weekend. It seemed to be as much an effort at public relations as an attempt to quiet Mr. Bush's critics, at least temporarily, by demonstrating the president's willingness to be open about his military service.

The announcement that Mr. Bush would appear before the 9/11 commission came less than a half-hour later, shortly before 7 p.m., in a short statement e-mailed to reporters by the White House. In it, the White House said Mr. Bush had agreed to a request for a private meeting with the commission, which is led by Thomas H. Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey. . . .

"The president has agreed to the request," the statement said. "While the chair and vice chair have suggested the possibility of a public session at a later time, we believe the president can provide all the requested information in the private meeting, and there is no need for any additional testimony."

It was unclear how much of Mr. Bush's testimony would eventually be made public in a commission report. But commission officials said that much of the testimony might have to remain secret because it would almost certainly deal with highly classified intelligence matters.

Commission officials said that a letter requesting testimony from Mr. Bush had been delivered to the White House only late on Friday afternoon. On Thursday, the commission announced that it intended to seek testimony from Mr. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore, as well as several senior White House officials and cabinet officers in the Bush administration.

Commission officials said that they had a tentative commitment from Mr. Cheney, Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gore to submit to questioning as well.

Files released by the White House last night from President Bush's Vietnam War-era service in the National Guard show that the future president was an exemplary pilot whose military record contains numerous gaps in the last two years of his six-year commitment.

The White House, seeking to quell a revived controversy over Bush's Guard service, released hundreds of pages of records that were previously withheld. The documents include what the White House describes as all the non-medical elements of Bush's military personnel file, including performance evaluations, documentation of his honorable discharge, and a thick bureaucratic paper trail of applications, promotions and transfers.

The records show Bush was an eager fighter pilot who said he wanted to spend a lifetime in aviation. But they provide no evidence that he did any military service in Alabama, to which he had requested a transfer in May 1972 to work on a Senate campaign that ended in November 1972.

And the records show officials from Bush's home base in Texas declining to provide details of his activities between May 1972 to April 1973, even though such documentation was requested by National Guard headquarters.

The records, while offering nothing further to prove Bush's participation with the Guard in Alabama, provide a number of extraneous personal details about Bush. His tonsils were taken out at age 5 and he had appendicitis at 10. A fatty cyst was removed from his chest in 1960, and he had a hemorrhoid while in the Guard.

Bush had a $212-a-month stint as a sporting-goods salesman at Sears in 1966, and was a messenger for the white-shoe law firm of Baker Botts. He listed the "Houston Club" as a credit and character reference on one form. The "personal history" he filled out in 1968, when he was 21, listed his only foreign travel as Scotland, in August and September 1959, for "pleasure -- vacation." . . .

One of the most prominent mysteries about Bush's military record has been why he did not take another flight physical, resulting in the suspension from flying status. [White House communications director Dan] Bartlett said, as he has in the past, Bush made that choice "because he was no longer flying," since he was reporting to the Alabama Air National Guard, which did not have the plane he was trained to fly, an F-102 fighter.

"It was a practical thing," Bartlett said. "There was no reason to take a flight exam when he wasn't flying and wasn't going to fly."

Fending off allegations that President Bush failed to honor his Texas Air National Guard service by taking unexplained months off at a time from serving, the White House also has to deal with the accusation from a retired lieutenant colonel in the Texas National Guard who claims aides to Bush went through his military file in 1997 and removed any embarrassing information, and tossed documents in the trash. They were allegedly the types of documents that might help answer many of the unanswered questions surrounding Bush's Guard service today.

The retired officer, Bill Burkett, went public with his charges in 1998. But with renewed interest in Bush's Guard service, and specifically the contents of his personal military file, Burkett's story about tampering has taken on greater urgency and attracted national notice. "I don't like the attention," he said from his home near Abilene, Texas, during an interview with Salon. "If you think 15 minutes of fame is worth it, that's damn sure no motivation for this kind of crap," referring to the constant press inquiries. (Burkett's story is also detailed in the upcoming book by James Moore, "Bush's War for Re-election.") . . .

Burkett says when the incident occurred in 1997 he discussed it several times with his friend and fellow officer George Conn. In 2002, Conn confirmed to USA Today that Burkett talked to him about the conversation he overheard regarding Bush's file, and did so within days of its happening. This week Conn told the New York Times via e-mail, "I know LTC Bill Burkett and served with him several years ago in the Texas Army National Guard. I believe him to be honest and forthright. He calls things like he sees them.'" But in Friday's Boston Globe, Conn, now a civilian government employee working with the U.S. Army in Germany, denied Burkett ever told him about the conversation Burkett overheard concerning Bush's military file.

Burkett dismisses Conn's new version of the story. "The truth hasn't changed," said Burkett. "The only thing that has changed is George Conn's statement." . . .

[Boehlert's interview with Burkett follows.]

General James, Karen Hughes, Joe Allbaugh, Dan Bartlett, General Scribner, they've all adamantly denied your account. If someone's coming to this fresh and doesn't have strong feeling either way, why should they believe your account if those four or five people all say it's an outrageous claim?

One way I think you should look at this is, look at motive on my part. Why would I do this? Why would I manufacture such a story? Why would I then endanger or otherwise destroy a very strong career? Why would I then subject myself to the retaliation that was at hand? Once the retaliation was at hand and the story was false, why would I continue to insist it was true?

George Conn told the Boston Globe this week you never mentioned the overheard conversation to him, and that he did not know Bush's file was being reviewed.

It's interesting that just two days ago Mr. Conn forwarded an e-mail response to a reporter, which was read to me, and it said, quote, "Lt. Col. Burkett is an honorable man and does not lie," end quote.

So, you did speak to Mr. Conn that night or within a couple days in 1997 expressing your concern and also told him about the conversation you overheard.

The truth has not changed in this one day.

Was he aware that that was George Bush's file being examined when you two visited the museum?

I just said that the truth has not changed in this one day.

I know but...

You're not going to take me into the details and pound this thing, no. The truth has not changed in one day. And I stand on those statements and the truth.

Are you surprised by Conn's comments?

No.

Even though he's corroborated you for all those years?

You don't understand the level of pressure he's under. He has a contract position with the Department of Defense.

Have you talked to him recently?

I had an e-mail sent to him. I told him, George, I know you're underground, I know you're being beat up. You do what you have to do. I'll still respect you. And I respect him. This guy's an honorable man. I love the man. But you can't ask a man to give up his life. . . .

Are you surprised they were able to uncover records that they hadn't been previously able to find?

I think it's strange when Mr. Dan Bartlett in 2000, right before the election says, "No, Denver [the Air Reserve Personnel Center] didn't have any of those files, and those files didn't exist." And now he comes back and says, "Hey, we've got them and they were right where they were supposed to be in Denver." Now, that's strange to me. That doesn't pass the smell test. And that's the only reason this story has legs.

Only one person has come forward with recollections of serving with Bush in Alabama. John B. "Bill" Calhoun, 69, said he saw Bush at Dannelly Air National Guard Base eight to 10 times from May to October 1972. But Calhoun also said he recalls Bush at Dannelly at times in mid-1972 when the White House acknowledges Bush was not even based in Alabama. The following is an account of the documents and events during this time period.

May 24, 1972: Bush seeks a transfer from his Houston Guard unit to the 9921st Air Reserve Squadron in Montgomery, Ala., for an unpaid assignment while he works as political director on the Senate campaign of Winton M. Blount, a friend of his father. The transfer is approved by the unit's commander. There is no record Bush reported for duty.

July 6: Bush's medical qualification to fly expires.

July 31: The Air Force Reserve Personnel Center overrules the May transfer request and returns Bush's application as "ineligible for assignment in the Air Reserve Squadron."

Sept. 5: A memo is written announcing the revocation of Bush's flight status as of Aug. 1 because of a "failure to accomplish annual medical examination."

Sept. 6: Bush's request for a transfer to perform "equivalent duty" for the 187th TAC Recon Group based in Montgomery, Ala., is approved.

Sept. 15: The Alabama Guard accepts Bush and directs him to report to Lt. Col. William Turnipseed. Turnipseed said he never met Bush.

Late October 1972 to May 1973: Records show sporadic Guard activity at unspecified locations, until Bush appears to resume active participation in Houston.

January 1973: Bush goes in for a dental examination, which results in the only documentation that shows Bush at a Guard facility in Alabama.

May 2: Bush's evaluation form states: "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of report. A civilian occupation made it necessary for him to move to Montgomery, Alabama."

June: The evaluation is returned to the Texas National Guard with request for form 77a so "this officer can be rated in the position he held."

Sept. 5: Bush files an "application for discharge" effective Oct. 1, seven months before his six years were up. The discharge was granted.

Nov. 12: Form 77a is sent by the Texas Guard's personnel office and says simply: "Not rated for the period 1 May 1972 through 30 Apr 73. Report for this period not available for administrative reasons."

The controversy over President Bush's time in the Air National Guard has exposed one not-so-secret aspect of the Guard's record-keeping: It has been full of gaps and inaccuracies for years.

Contrary to the military's general image of orderliness and discipline, the process of documenting the service of Guard members and reservists has long suffered from disorder and incompleteness, according to people both inside and outside the Pentagon familiar with the records system.

"In the 1960s, '70s and '80s, we had a horrendous problem keeping National Guard and reserve records," said Van Hipp, who served as a deputy assistant secretary for reserve forces in the administration of President George H.W. Bush. "And that's why you have hundreds of Guard and reserve members each year who go to their congressmen for help compiling their records for retirement purposes."

Records for the Air National Guard are maintained at the Air Reserve Personnel Center, a giant three-story facility in Denver. But they are compiled first by personnel officers at Guard units in individual states -- which is where problems usually arise, military officials say.

"It's like anything else; you're dealing with human beings, so mistakes are going to be made," said Lt. Col. Gus Schalkham, the center's spokesman. "Sometimes things don't get put in there by the military personnel system."

Another official who works at the Denver center estimated that 90 percent of the personnel files arrive missing one or more elements. . . .

Further, the accuracy of some of the submitted information has come into question because of commanders' efforts over the years to exaggerate membership figures. In these cases, Guard members who have stopped going to monthly drills have nonetheless remained on unit rosters to ensure no reduction in federal funding for the units.

An investigation in 2001 by USA Today found that the percentage of such "ghost soldiers" ran as high as 20 percent in some units. A subsequent report by the congressional General Accounting Office confirmed that Guard officers had inflated troop levels in some instances and filed false reports, which then became the basis for funding requests to Congress.

"Record-keeping in the Guard has always been spotty," said a senior congressional staff member familiar with the issue. "Low participation, or non-participation, has been chronic.

"My understanding is that the rule of thumb for many years was that a member could miss as many as nine drills before being dropped," he added. "That meant that, with two drills being held a month, someone could go four months without attending before anything might happen to him."

In the late 1960s and early 1970s when Bush served, the Air National Guard was struggling to overcome problems of undermanning, poor training and outdated equipment that had plagued it during the Korean War, according to the Guard's chief historian, Joe Gross. With about 90,000 members, the Guard was about 11 percent the size of the active force, which numbered 791,000 in 1970.

Former Lt. Colonel Bill Burkett says that members of George Bush's staff, along with senior officers at Texas National Guard Headquarters, purged Bush's National Guard files of potentially embarrassing material back in 1997. Is his story true? . . .

The short answer is that I think Burkett is probably telling the truth. The long answer is — well, long.

Officers who flew fighter-jet patrols in the early 1970s with George W. Bush describe him as a gung-ho warrior and a gifted pilot who was popular in his Texas Air National Guard unit.

"He was a hell of a good pilot," one of Bush's former commanding officers, Walter B. "Buck" Staudt, recalled in December 2000, shortly after Bush was elected president. In 1971, he rated among the top 10% of fellow pilots. . . .

The positive descriptions of Bush's military service make his sudden decision to quit flying in the spring of 1972 — two years before his pilot commitment was up — all the more puzzling.

Why 1st Lt. Bush stopped flying F-102 fighters remains murky despite the release on Friday of more than 400 pages of records detailing his Guard service from the time he enlisted until he was discharged.

An examination by USA TODAY of all the Bush records released to the public and interviews with pilots, Bush's Guard comrades and military personnel experts suggests Bush was treated differently from most pilots:

• Bush was accepted into pilot school even though he scored in the 25th percentile on a standardized test. The test was given to all prospective pilots and there was no specific score that disqualified a candidate. In addition, Bush had two arrests for college pranks and four traffic offenses before applying for pilot training. Former and current military pilots say it was uncommon for an applicant to be approved for training with such a record.
• There is no record of a formal procedure called a "flying evaluation board," which normally would have been convened once Bush stopped flying in April 1972.
• Bush's records do not show he was given another job in the Air Guard once he quit flying. Pilots and Bush comrades say his records should reflect some type of new duties he was assigned. . . .

Bush, whose father was in Congress at the time, was selected for Air Force pilot training, a highly competitive process, despite the speeding tickets and automobile accidents. He had also been arrested for two incidents considered college pranks: stealing a wreath in New Haven, Conn., and rowdiness at a college football game.

The combination of arrests and traffic violations and the score in the bottom quarter of those who took the pilot exam usually would have cast doubt on most applicants who were applying for pilot training, four former and current National Guard fighter pilots and one former Air Force pilot said. All served in the 1970s.

After Bush stopped flying fighter jets in April 1972 and did not take an annual physical examination required of all pilots, the Air Force should have required a hearing known as a flying evaluation board to determine his fitness to fly. Because the federal government spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to train each pilot, it typically did not allow them to stop flying without a formal proceeding. Bush's records do not mention a flying evaluation board.

The president's advisers and friends have explained that Bush stopped flying because his unit was phasing out the F-102 in 1972. They also say he was not able to get a required flight physical in Alabama, where his records show he was granted permission to train in the fall of 1972. Bartlett said there was no need for a physical exam because Bush stopped flying.

Guard records, however, show pilots in Bush's unit in Texas were still flying the F-102 in 1974, a year after Bush left the Guard.

And Bush would likely have been able to get a flight doctor in Alabama to give him a physical. The White House released records last week showing that Bush had received a dental exam at Dannelly Air National Guard Base in Montgomery, Ala., in January 1973.

Pilots who stop flying are given other Guard duties. In Air Force jargon, it's called DNIF, or Duties Not to Include Flying, which is a written order. There is no indication in Bush's records that his supervisors assigned him another job. Aides say Bush has told them that once he stopped flying, he performed "odds and ends" for commanders whose names he can't recall. . . .

John Richardson, a former Air Guard, Air Force and Air Reserve fighter pilot who served from 1978 to 2001, said regulations for Air Guard pilots during the early 1970s were much more relaxed than they are today. But even by the standards of the time, Richardson said, Bush's selection for pilot training and the circumstances under which he stopped flying are "highly unusual." . . .

Richardson, the former Air Guard pilot, said it is not unheard of for Guard pilots to stop flying for months at a time. Some are airline pilots and need to adjust their schedules; others get called away by their employers. But it is rare for a pilot to fail to take a required physical, even one who knew he would be taking a short hiatus from flying, Richardson said.

Two members of the Air National Guard unit that President George W. Bush allegedly served with as a young Guard flyer in 1972 had been told to expect him late in that year and were on the lookout for him. He never showed, however; of that both Bob Mintz and Paul Bishop are certain. . . .

BOTH MEN KNEW JOHN “BILL” CALHOUN, the Atlanta businessman who was flight safety officer for the 187th in 1972 and who subsequently retired as a lieutenant colonel. Calhoun created something of a sensation late last week when he came forward at the apparent prompting of the administration to claim that he did in fact remember Lt. Bush, that the young officer has met with him during drill weekends, largely spending his time reading safety manuals in the 187th’s safety office.

Even in media venues sympathetic to the president, doubt was cast almost immediately on aspects of Calhoun’s statement – particularly his claim that Lt. Bush was at the 187th during spring and early summer of 1972, periods when the White House itself does not claim the young lieutenant had yet arrived at Dannelly.

Mintz and Bishop are both skeptical, as well.

“I’m not saying it wasn’t possible, but I can’t imagine Bill not introducing him around,” Mintz said. “Unless he [Bush] was an introvert back then, which I don’t think he was, he’d have spent some time out in the mainstream, in the dining hall or wherever. He’d have spent some time with us. Unless he was trying to avoid publicity. But he wasn’t well known at all then. It all seems a bit unusual.”

Bishop was even more explicit. “I’m glad he [Calhoun] remembered being with Lt. Bush and Lt. Bush’s eating sandwiches and looking at manuals. It seems a little strange that one man saw an individual, and all the rest of them did not. Because it was such a small organization. Usually, we all had lunch together.

“Maybe we’re all getting old and senile,” Bishop said with obvious sarcasm. “I don’t want to second-guess Mr. Calhoun’s memory and I would hate to impugn the integrity of a fellow officer, but I know the rest of us didn’t see Lt. Bush.” As Bishop (corroborated by Mintz) described the physical environment, the safety office where the meetings between Major Calhoun and Lt. Bush allegedly took place was on the second floor of the unit’s hangar, a relatively small structure itself... It was a very close-quarters situation “ It would have been “virtually impossible,” said Bishop, for an officer to go in and out of the safety office for eight hours a month several months in a row and be unseen by anybody except then Major Calhoun.

As Bishop noted, “Fighter pilots, and that’s what we were, have situational awareness. They know everything about their environment – whether it’s an enemy plane creeping up or a stranger in their hangar.”

In any case, said Bishop, “If what he [Calhoun] says is true, there would be documentation of the fact in point summaries and pay documents.”

AND THAT’S ANOTHER MYSTERY.

Yet another veteran of the 187th is Wayne Rambo of Montgomery, who as a lieutenant served as the unit’s chief administrative until April of 1972. That was a few months prior to Bush’s alleged service, which Rambo, who continued to drill with the 187th, also cannot remember.

Rambo was, however, able to shed some light on the Guard practice, then and now, of assigning annual service “points” to members, based on their record of attendance and participation. The bare minimum number is 50, and reservists meeting standard are said to have had “a good year,” Rambo said. Less than that amount to an “unsatisfactory” year – one calling for penalties assessed against the reservist’ retirement fund and, more immediately, for disciplinary or other corrective action. Such deficits can be written off only on the basis of a “commander’s call,” Rambo said – and only then because of certifiable illness or some other clearly plausible reason.

“The 50-point minimum has always been taken very seriously, especially for pilots,” says Rambo. “The reason is that it takes a lot of taxpayer money to train a pilot, and you don’t want to see it wasted.”

For whatever reason, the elusive Lt. George W. Bush was awarded 41 actual points for his service in both Texas and Alabama during 1972 – though he apparently was given 15 “gratuitous” points -- presumably by his original Texas command -- enough to bring him up from substandard. That would have been a decided violation of the norm, according to Rambo, who stresses that the awarding of gratuitous points was clearly meant only as a reward to reservists for meeting their bottom line

“You had to get to 50 to get the gratuitous points, which applied toward your retirement benefits,” the former chief administrative officer recalls. “If you were 49, you stayed at 49; if you were 50, you got up to 65.”

The mystery surrounding Bush's physical is one the White House continues to grapple with. Over the weekend Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, told the New York Times Bush didn't take the physical because when he transferred to Alabama for the Senate campaign, his temporary Alabama National Guard unit did not fly the same fighter jet as Bush trained on in Texas. Therefore, because Bush could not fly planes in Alabama, he did not bother to report for the medical exam. Bartlett's explanation makes it seem as though Bush failed to take the physical only because of the discrepancy in the type of fighter planes being flown in Alabama. The truth is Bush originally asked to be transferred to an Alabama Guard unit that flew no planes. It was a postal unit and his choice was eventually overruled by the National Guard headquarters, which did not see the merit in Bush, a full-trained pilot, serving at a paper-pushing unit. (Bush was eventually assigned to a unit that flew planes.) So despite Bartlett's spin, it's clear that by the spring of 1972 Bush had already decided, apparently unilaterally, that his flying days were over and that he was not going to submit himself to a physical. His unit assignment in Alabama appears to have had nothing to do with that decision.

Bush's failure to take the physical in 1972, and his subsequent loss of his flying status, should have triggered a disciplinary review, copies of which would be contained in Bush's military file. But none exists. If no disciplinary actions were ever taken, it would likely confirm the suspicion that Bush's commanders looked the other way while the son of a congressman was able to bend military rules to his advantage.

The records released by the White House do include early evaluations that described Bush with high praise. "Lieutenant Bush is an outstanding young pilot and officer and is a credit to this unit," Lt. Col. Bobby Hodges wrote on May 27, 1971. "This officer is rated in the upper 10 percent of his contemporaries." But against the backdrop of Bush's sudden disappearance from the Texas Guard, and his apparent failure to fly again, the praise only serves to highlight the strangeness of the president's Guard trajectory.

Meanwhile, the White House appeared to gain some momentum late last week in finally locating people who could vouch for Bush's mysterious Alabama service. But upon closer examination, their stories did little if anything to support Bush's claim he served honorably while in Alabama. For instance, Jean Sullivan, an Alabama GOP leader, stepped forward last week and told reporters Bush worked hard on the Blount campaign. But she also conceded that even back in 1972 there were rumors Bush wasn't fulfilling his Guard duty. She dismissed the talk as the work of "some idiots" within the Alabama National Guard who were jealous of Bush. Still, thanks to Sullivan, we now know real-time doubts were being raised about Bush's service in Alabama.

Republicans last week also provided reporters with the phone number of John "Bill" Calhoun, a former Alabama National Guard officer. He told journalists he was upset during the 2000 campaign when he read references to Bush's lapsed service and tried to contact Bush's campaign, but never heard back. Apparently Calhoun, who now lives in Georgia, did not see the press reports at the time about a group of Alabama veterans who offered a $3,500 reward for anyone who would come forward in 2000 and corroborate Bush's claim about serving in Alabama.

Last week Calhoun told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Bush asked for weekend drills. But according to the documents released by the White House one week ago, only five of the 12 days Bush was credited for serving in Alabama were for weekend days.

Specifically, Calhoun told reporters Bush was assigned to his command at the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group, and he saw Bush serve between eight to 10 times for about eight hours each from May to October 1972. But those May-to-October dates do not correspond with the payroll records the White House released last Tuesday. They indicated Bush was credited for doing Guard duty in Alabama during the months of October, November and, presumably, January.

Secondly, when Bush moved to Alabama to work on the Blount campaign, he first asked to be transferred to the 9921st Air Reserve Squadron (the postal unit). There's no evidence Bush ever showed up at the 9921st. Instead, Bush in September 1972 asked to serve with a different Alabama unit, Calhoun's 187th Tactical Recon Group, for the months of September, October and November. So why would Calhoun have seen Bush signing in at the Montgomery base during May, June, July, August and September, if Bush didn't even ask to be transferred there until Sept. 5? And according to the recently released White House documents, Bush didn't actually show up at the Montgomery base until October 28-29.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 — President Bush on Friday used a weeklong Congressional recess to install William H. Pryor Jr., the Alabama attorney general, in a federal appeals court seat to get around a Democratic filibuster that had blocked the nomination.

It was the second time in the last five weeks that Mr. Bush used a president's power to make appointments when Congress is not in session to name judges directly to the bench and thus skirt the Senate confirmation process. In January, Mr. Bush named Charles W. Pickering Sr., whose nomination had also been blocked by Senate Democrats, to another appeals court seat. . . .

Under the Constitution, Mr. Pryor will be able to serve on the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, based in Atlanta, until the end of the next session of Congress — meaning sometime in the fall of 2005. Judge Pickering, who was given a recess appointment before the current session of Congress, must give up his seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, in the fall of this year.

Washington -- White House economists wonder whether hamburger flippers at fast-food restaurants should be considered manufacturers. . . .

President George W. Bush raised the issue in his annual economic report.

In the report last week, Bush's chief economic adviser N. Gregory Mankiw called the definition "somewhat blurry" and asked whether it should be changed. "When a fast-food restaurant sells a hamburger, for example, is it providing a 'service' or is it combining inputs to 'manufacture' a product?"

For an administration that has seen 2.6 million manufacturing jobs vanish since January 2001, raising the possibility of changing how manufacturing jobs are classified has provoked a sharp response, especially in an election year.

When Mankiw's remarks came out this week, Democrats had a field day.

"If fast food is classified as manufacturing, perhaps the neighborhood lemonade stand should be considered part of the military-industrial complex," said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.).

In Ohio, presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) said: "If this president is going to tell middle-class factory workers that even though their job has disappeared, they can still have a good manufacturing job at $5.15 an hour at McDonald's, let him come to Ohio."

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger turned up the rhetoric against San Francisco's move to allow same-sex marriages, saying on national TV Sunday that he fears outbreaks of serious civil unrest if the ceremonies continue at City Hall.

Schwarzenegger said on NBC's "Meet the Press'' that he fears worsening protests about the divisive issue and worries the situation could get out of hand if courts don't quickly stop the marriages, which are being performed in defiance of existing state law.

"All of a sudden, we see riots, we see protests, we see people clashing. The next thing we know, there is injured or there is dead people. We don't want it to get to that extent,'' the Republican said in his first appearance as governor on a Sunday talk show.

A number of protesters were escorted out of San Francisco City Hall on Friday when they tried to disrupt the weddings, but no one was arrested.

That same day, the governor ordered state Attorney General Bill Lockyer to go to court to try to stop the marriages as soon as possible. Lockyer -- a Democrat and an independently elected state official -- said he resented the order and said Schwarzenegger had no authority to order him to do anything.

However, Lockyer's office has decided to expedite its reply to a lawsuit San Francisco filed last week challenging the laws that forbid same-sex marriage, Hallye Jordan, a spokeswoman for the attorney general, said Sunday. She said the reply would probably be filed early this week.

"We want a quick resolution of this issue," Jordan said. "We've got 30 days to file, but we're not going to wait. We have every intention of moving quickly because we think it's important for the people of California and for those same-sex couples who have obtained marriage licenses.''

She said she was taken aback by Schwarzenegger's comments that there are "riots," "protests" and "people clashing" in San Francisco. She said the attorney general's office knew only of the clashes Friday in which some 25 people blocked the door of the county clerk's office.

"We are not aware of any riots or any threat to public safety in San Francisco," Jordan said. "As we have said, if there is violence, we would step in. At this point we see peaceful acts of civil disobedience on both sides. We are unclear as to what the governor is referencing in terms of riots. We urge a toning down of the political rhetoric. This is a complex issue, and we will be dealing with it in the courts."

An aide to Mayor Gavin Newsom also denied Sunday there has been any violence surrounding the marriages, which have garnered international publicity. "It's been largely peaceful, and we don't see that changing,'' said spokesman Peter Ragone. . . .

President Bush called Tuesday for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, ending months of speculation about his stance on the controversy and guaranteeing it will become an issue in his re-election campaign.

Bush, noting that authorities in Massachusetts and San Francisco have moved to legalize same-sex marriage, said an amendment is necessary to protect "the most fundamental institution of civilization" from being redefined by "activist judges and local officials."

"If we are to prevent the meaning of marriage from being changed forever, our nation must enact a constitutional amendment," he said.

"Decisive and democratic action is needed, because attempts to redefine marriage in a single state or city could have serious consequences throughout the country."

Bush left open the possibility of allowing states to offer some benefits to same-sex couples, saying that legislatures should be "free to make their own choices in defining legal arrangements other than marriage."

Bush's remarks at the White House, coming only one day after he delivered a feisty speech that many viewed as the unofficial kickoff of his re-election campaign, were quickly assailed by the leading Democratic presidential candidates.

"I believe President Bush is wrong," Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry said.

"All Americans should be concerned when a president who is in political trouble tries to tamper with the Constitution of the United States at the start of his re-election campaign," Kerry said, adding that he would vote against a constitutional amendment even though he believes "marriage is between a man and a woman."

Both Kerry and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards said the issue should be left to the states.

"Washington has no business playing politics with this issue," Edwards said in a statement, adding that he opposes both gay marriage and attempts to amend the Constitution to ban it. . . .

Kerry, Edwards and other Democratic opponents of a constitutional amendment accused Bush of trying to distract the public from issues such as jobs and health care.

"Our founding fathers would be appalled by the president's efforts to use our Constitution as a weapon to divide our nation," said Rep. Tammy Baldwin, a gay Democrat from Wisconsin.

Patrick Guerriero, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans - a gay-rights group that endorsed Bush in 2000 - called Bush's announcement a "declaration of war" against gays and said his group would "do some soul searching" in the coming days about whether to endorse Bush again.

"As conservative Republicans, we are outraged," he said. "This is a purely political proposal to appease the radical right."

With President Bush's embrace yesterday of a marriage amendment, the compassionate conservative of 2000 has shown he is willing, if necessary, to rekindle the culture wars in 2004.

Bush's plan was to run for a second term on the basis of his performance as a war leader and as a tax cutter, eschewing divisive social issues as he did in 2000 while campaigning as "a uniter, not a divider." But in the end, Republican strategists said, Bush had no choice but to change course and add a highly charged cultural issue to the center of the campaign.

Bush's conservative base of support, despite three years of cultivation, had grown restless over the budget deficit, government spending and his plan to liberalize immigration. At the same time, he was on the defensive over the economy and the Iraq war, and facing an uncharacteristically unified Democratic Party. . . .

"This is an attempt, probably successful, to make sure their base remains with them," Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg said. He said the strategy will still be a "net positive" for Bush but will not work as well as it did in 1988.

"The cultural war gets you to even, but it doesn't get you to a Bush-Dukakis election, because the country is more diverse and more tolerant," Greenberg said.

Democrats were already squirming yesterday after Bush's announcement. Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), the Democratic front-runner to be Bush's opponent in November, coupled his announcement that he would oppose the amendment with many qualifiers.

He said he believes "marriage is between a man and a woman," but supports "civil unions" and believes states should make decisions about gay marriage. Kerry also complained Bush is "trying to drive a wedge."

But if the move made Democrats uneasy, a Senate Republican with ties to the religious conservative movement said "the last place Bush wanted to be" at this time in the electoral cycle was wooing his base of support. "He should be coasting on being the war president and deliverer of tax cuts; instead, he has to take a divisive role on a contentious social issue that could undercut him as a compassionate conservative," this official said.

Concern was evident in some of the public caution voiced by Bush allies on Capitol Hill yesterday. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), while applauding Bush's "moral leadership" on the issue, said, "We're not going to take a knee-jerk reaction to this. We are going to look at our options, and we are going to be deliberative about what solutions we may suggest."

Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.) said he is "not supportive" of an amendment and suggested the matter first go through the court system.

This reluctance is not surprising, said Andrew Kohut, whose nonpartisan Pew Research Center has polled extensively about gay marriage. Recent polls, including a new Washington Post-ABC News survey, show majorities oppose gay marriage, but the public is divided on the need for a constitutional amendment.

It ranked 23rd out of 24 policy priorities in a January Pew poll. At the same time, Kohut said, "There are a fair number of swing voters who take a libertarian point of view, and if Republicans are seen as taking rights away, it's not a good thing."

Indeed, at a fundraiser Monday night, Bush vowed to "extend the frontiers of liberty." But 15 hours later, he threw his support behind an amendment that would be only the second in U.S. history other than Prohibition to curtail public freedoms. In the 2000 campaign, Bush himself opposed federal intervention on the subject, saying in a Feb. 15 interview with CNN's Larry King that states "can do what they want to do" on gay marriage. Vice President Cheney, similarly, said in 2000, "I don't think there should necessarily be a federal policy in this area."

You can't blame the Democrats for making the most of the Bush administration's message malfunction on trade and jobs. When the president's top economist suggests, even hypothetically, considering hamburger-flipping a form of manufacturing, it's a golden opportunity to accuse the White House of being out of touch with the concerns of working Americans. ("Will special sauce now be counted as a durable good?" Representative John Dingell asks.) And the accusation sticks, because it's true.

But the Democratic presidential candidates have to walk a tightrope. To exploit the administration's vulnerability, they must offer relief to threatened workers. But they also have to avoid falling into destructive protectionism.

Let me spare you the usual economist's sermon on the virtues of free trade, except to say this: although old fallacies about international trade have been making a comeback lately (yes, Senator Charles Schumer, that means you), it is as true as ever that the U.S. economy would be poorer and less productive if we turned our back on world markets. Furthermore, if the United States were to turn protectionist, other countries would follow. The result would be a less hopeful, more dangerous world.

Yet it's bad economics to pretend that free trade is good for everyone, all the time. "Trade often produces losers as well as winners," declares the best-selling textbook in international economics (by Maurice Obstfeld and yours truly). The accelerated pace of globalization means more losers as well as more winners; workers' fears that they will lose their jobs to Chinese factories and Indian call centers aren't irrational.

Addressing those fears isn't protectionist. On the contrary, it's an essential part of any realistic political strategy in support of world trade. That's why the Nelson Report, a strongly free-trade newsletter on international affairs, recently had kind words for John Kerry. It suggested that he is basically a free trader who understands that "without some kind of political safety valve, Congress may yet be stampeded into protectionism, which benefits no one."

Cities from Sydney to Brussels to Dublin to Vancouver are fast becoming creative-class centers to rival Boston, Seattle, and Austin. They're doing it through a variety of means--from government-subsidized labs to partnerships between top local universities and industry. Most of all, they're luring foreign creative talent, including our own. The result is that the sort of high-end, high-margin creative industries that used to be the United States' province and a crucial source of our prosperity have begun to move overseas. The most advanced cell phones are being made in Salo, Finland, not Chicago. The world's leading airplanes are being designed and built in Toulouse and Hamburg, not Seattle.

As other nations become more attractive to mobile immigrant talent, America is becoming less so. A recent study by the National Science Board found that the U.S. government issued 74,000 visas for immigrants to work in science and technology in 2002, down from 166,000 in 2001--an astonishing drop of 55 percent. This is matched by similar, though smaller-scale, declines in other categories of talented immigrants, from finance experts to entertainers. Part of this contraction is derived from what we hope are short-term security concerns--as federal agencies have restricted visas from certain countries after September 11. More disturbingly, we find indications that fewer educated foreigners are choosing to come to the United States. For instance, most of the decline in science and technology immigrants in the National Science Board study was due to a drop in applications.

Why would talented foreigners avoid us? In part, because other countries are simply doing a better, more aggressive job of recruiting them. The technology bust also plays a role. There are fewer jobs for computer engineers, and even top foreign scientists who might still have their pick of great cutting-edge research positions are less likely than they were a few years ago to make millions through tech-industry partnerships.

But having talked to hundreds of talented professionals in a half dozen countries over the past year, I'm convinced that the biggest reason has to do with the changed political and policy landscape in Washington. In the 1990s, the federal government focused on expanding America's human capital and interconnectedness to the world--crafting international trade agreements, investing in cutting edge R&D, subsidizing higher education and public access to the Internet, and encouraging immigration. But in the last three years, the government's attention and resources have shifted to older sectors of the economy, with tariff protection and subsidies to extractive industries. Meanwhile, Washington has stunned scientists across the world with its disregard for consensus scientific views when those views conflict with the interests of favored sectors (as has been the case with the issue of global climate change). Most of all, in the wake of 9/11, Washington has inspired the fury of the world, especially of its educated classes, with its my-way-or-the-highway foreign policy. In effect, for the first time in our history, we're saying to highly mobile and very finicky global talent, "You don't belong here."

Obviously, this shift has come about with the changing of the political guard in Washington, from the internationalist Bill Clinton to the aggressively unilateralist George W. Bush. But its roots go much deeper, to a tectonic change in the country's political-economic demographics. As many have noted, America is becoming more geographically polarized, with the culturally more traditionalist, rural, small-town, and exurban "red" parts of the country increasingly voting Republican, and the culturally more progressive urban and suburban "blue" areas going ever more Democratic. Less noted is the degree to which these lines demarcate a growing economic divide, with "blue" patches representing the talent-laden, immigrant-rich creative centers that have largely propelled economic growth, and the "red" parts representing the economically lagging hinterlands. The migrations that feed creative-center economies are also exacerbating the contrasts. As talented individuals, eager for better career opportunities and more adventurous, diverse lifestyles, move to the innovative cities, the hinterlands become even more culturally conservative. Now, the demographic dynamic which propelled America's creative economy has produced a political dynamic that could choke that economy off. Though none of the candidates for president has quite framed it that way, it's what's really at stake in the 2004 elections. . . .

[T]he bigger problem isn't that Americans are going elsewhere. It's that for the first time in modern memory, top scientists and intellectuals from elsewhere are choosing not to come here. We are so used to thinking that the world's leading creative minds, like the world's best basketball and baseball players, always want to come to the States, while our people go overseas only if they are second-rate or washed up, that it's hard to imagine it could ever be otherwise. And it's still true that because of our country's size, its dynamism, its many great universities, and large government research budgets, we're the Yankees of science. But like the Yankees, we've been losing some of our best players. And even great teams can go into slumps.

The altered flow of talent is already beginning to show signs of crimping the scientific process. "We can't hold scientific meetings here [in the United States] anymore because foreign scientists can't get visas," a top oceanographer at the University of California at San Diego recently told me. The same is true of graduate students, the people who do the legwork of scientific research and are the source of many powerful ideas. The graduate students I have taught at several major universities -- Ohio State, Harvard, MIT, Carnegie Mellon -- have always been among the first to point out the benefits of studying and doing research in the United States. But their impressions have changed dramatically over the past year. They now complain of being hounded by the immigration agencies as potential threats to security, and that America is abandoning its standing as an open society. Many are thinking of leaving for foreign schools, and they tell me that their friends and colleagues back home are no longer interested in coming to the United States for their education but are actively seeking out universities in Canada, Europe, and elsewhere.

It would be comforting to think that keeping out the foreigners would mean more places for home-grown talent in our top graduate programs and research faculties. Alas, it doesn't work that way: We have many brilliant young people, but not nearly enough to fill all the crucial slots. Last year, for instance, a vast, critical artificial intelligence project at MIT had to be jettisoned because the university couldn't find enough graduate students who weren't foreigners and who could thus clear new security regulations.

Nor is this phenomenon limited to science; other sectors are beginning to suffer. The pop-music magazine Tracks, for instance, recently reported that a growing number of leading world musicians, from South African singer and guitarist Vusi Mahlasela to the Bogota-based electronica collective Sidestepper, have had to cancel their American tours because they were refused visas, while Youssou N'Dour, perhaps the globe's most famous music artist, cancelled his largest-ever U.S. tour last spring to protest the invasion of Iraq. . . .

For several years now, my colleagues and I have been measuring the underlying factors common to those American cities and regions with the highest level of creative economic growth. The chief factors we've found are: large numbers of talented individuals, a high degree of technological innovation, and a tolerance of diverse lifestyles. Recently my colleague Irene Tinagli of Carnegie Mellon and I have applied the same analysis to northern Europe, and the findings are startling. The playing field is much more level than you might think. Sweden tops the United States on this measure, with Finland, the Netherlands, and Denmark close behind. The United Kingdom and Belgium are also doing well. And most of these countries, especially Ireland, are becoming more creatively competitive at a faster rate than the United States.

Though the data are not as perfect at the metropolitan level, other cities are also beating us for fresh new talent, diversity, and brainpower. Vancouver and Toronto are set to take off: Both city-regions have a higher concentration of immigrants than New York, Miami, or Los Angeles. So too are Sydney and Melbourne. As creative centers, they would rank alongside Washington, D.C. and New York City. Many of these places also offer such further inducements as spectacular waterfronts, beautiful countryside, and great outdoor life. They're safe. They're rarely at war. These cities are becoming the global equivalents of Boston or San Francisco, transforming themselves from small, obscure places to creative hotbeds that draw talent from all over--including your city and mine. . . .

The last 20 years has seen the rise of the "culture wars"--between those who value traditional virtues, and others drawn to new lifestyles and diversity of opinion. In truth, this clash mostly played out among intellectuals of the left and right; as sociologist Alan Wolfe has shown, most Americans manage a subtle balance between the two tendencies. Still, the cleavages exist, roughly paralleling the ideologies of the two political parties. And increasingly in the 1990s, they expressed themselves geographically, as more and more Americans chose to live in places that suited their culture and lifestyle preferences.

This movement of people is what the journalist Bill Bishop and I have referred to as the Big Sort, a sifting with enormous political and cultural implications, which has helped to give rise to what political demographer James Gimpel of the University of Maryland calls a "patchwork nation." City by city, neighborhood to neighborhood, Gimpel and others have found, our politics are becoming more concentrated and polarized. We may live in a 50-50 country, but the actual places we live (inner-ring v. outer-ring suburbs, San Francisco v. Fresno) are much more likely to distribute their loyalties 60-40, and getting more lopsided rather than less. These divisions arise not from some master plan but from millions upon millions of individual choices. Individuals are sorting themselves into communities of like-minded people which validate their choices and identities. Gay sales reps buy ramshackle old houses in the city and renovate them; straight, married sales reps purchase newly-built houses with yards on the suburban fringe. Conservative tech geeks move to Dallas, while liberal ones are more likely to go to San Francisco. Young African Americans who can write code find their way to Atlanta or Washington, D.C., while whites with the same education and skills are more likely to migrate to Seattle or Austin. Working-class Southern Californian whites priced out of the real estate market and perhaps feeling overwhelmed by the influx of Mexicans move to suburban Phoenix. More than ever before, those who possess the means move to the city and neighborhood that reinforces their social and cultural view of the world.

And while there are no hard and fast rules--some liberals prefer suburbs of modest metro areas with lots of churches and shopping malls, some conservatives like urban neighborhoods with coffee shops--in general, these cultural and lifestyle preferences overlap with political ones (which the political parties have accentuated with computer-assisted redistricting). In 1980, according to Robert Cushing's detailed analysis of the election results, there wasn't a significant difference between how high-tech and low-tech regions voted for president; the difference between the parties still depended upon other factors. By 2000, however, the 21 regions with the largest concentrations of the creative class and the highest-tech economies voted Democratic at rates 17 percent above the national average. Regions with lower levels of creative people and low-tech economies, along with rural America, went Republican. In California, the most Democratic of states, George Bush won the state's 14 low-tech regions and rural areas by 210,000 votes. Al Gore took the 12 high-tech regions and their suburbs by over 1.5 million.

The primary organization representing American anthropologists criticized President Bush's proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage Thursday and gave a failing grade to the president's understanding of human cultures.

"The results of more than a century of anthropological research on households, kinship relationships and families, across cultures and through time, provide no support whatsoever for the view that either civilization or viable social orders depend upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution," said the executive board of the 11,000-member American Anthropological Association.

Bush has cast the union between male and female as the only proper form of marriage, or what he called in his State of the Union address "one of the most fundamental, enduring institutions of our civilization."

American anthropologists say he's wrong.

"Rather, anthropological research supports the conclusion that a vast array of family types, including families built upon same-sex partnerships, can contribute to stable and humane societies," the association's statement said, adding that the executive board "strongly opposes a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to heterosexual couples."

The statement was proposed by Dan Segal, a professor of anthropology and history from Pitzer College in Claremont (Los Angeles County), who called Bush's conception of the history of marriage "patently false."

"If he were to take even the first semester of anthropology, he would know that's not true," said Segal, a member of the anthropological association's Executive Committee.

Ghita Levine, communications director for the association, said the issue struck a nerve in the profession.

"They feel strongly about it because they are the people who study the culture through time and across the world," she said. "They are the people who know what cultures consist of."

Segal pointed to "sanctified same-sex unions in the fourth century in Christianity" and to the Greeks and Romans applying the concept of marriage to same-sex couples, not to mention the Native American berdache tradition in which males married males.

Writers often grumble about the criminal things editors do to their prose. The federal government has recently weighed in on the same issue — literally.

It has warned publishers they may face grave legal consequences for editing manuscripts from Iran and other disfavored nations, on the ground that such tinkering amounts to trading with the enemy.

Anyone who publishes material from a country under a trade embargo is forbidden to reorder paragraphs or sentences, correct syntax or grammar, or replace "inappropriate words," according to several advisory letters from the Treasury Department in recent months.

Adding illustrations is prohibited, too. To the baffled dismay of publishers, editors and translators who have been briefed about the policy, only publication of "camera-ready copies of manuscripts" is allowed.

The Treasury letters concerned Iran. But the logic, experts said, would seem to extend to Cuba, Libya, North Korea and other nations with which most trade is banned without a government license.

Laws and regulations prohibiting trade with various nations have been enforced for decades, generally applied to items like oil, wheat, nuclear reactors and, sometimes, tourism. Applying them to grammar, spelling and punctuation is an infuriating interpretation, several people in the publishing industry said.

"It is against the principles of scholarship and freedom of expression, as well as the interests of science, to require publishers to get U.S. government permission to publish the works of scholars and researchers who happen to live in countries with oppressive regimes," said Eric A. Swanson, a senior vice president at John Wiley & Sons, which publishes scientific, technical and medical books and journals.

Nahid Mozaffari, a scholar and editor specializing in literature from Iran, called the implications staggering. "A story, a poem, an article on history, archaeology, linguistics, engineering, physics, mathematics, or any other area of knowledge cannot be translated, and even if submitted in English, cannot be edited in the U.S.," she said.

"This means that the publication of the PEN Anthology of Contemporary Persian Literature that I have been editing for the last three years," she said, "would constitute aiding and abetting the enemy."

Allan Adler, a lawyer with the Association of American Publishers, said the trade group was unaware of any prosecutions for criminal editing. But he said the mere fact of the rules had scared some publishers into rejecting works from Iran.

Lee Tien, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group, questioned the logic of making editors a target of broad regulations that require a government license.

"There is no obvious reason why a license is required to edit where no license is required to publish," he said. "They can print anything as is. But they can't correct typos?"

In theory — almost certainly only in theory — correcting typographical errors and performing other routine editing could subject publishers to fines of $500,000 and 10 years in jail.

"Such activity," according to a September letter from the department's Office of Foreign Assets Control to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, "would constitute the provision of prohibited services to Iran."

Tara Bradshaw, a Treasury Department spokeswoman, confirmed the restrictions on manuscripts from Iran in a statement. Banned activities include, she wrote, "collaboration on and editing of the manuscripts, the selection of reviewers, and facilitation of a review resulting in substantive enhancements or alterations to the manuscripts."

She did not respond to a request seeking an explanation of the department's reasoning.