BUSH NEVER VISITED CAMBODIAN RESTAURANT WHILE WITH GUARD, BOOK CHARGES

WASHINGTON (TFM Press) -- A group critical of President Bush's re-election campaign has made a startling new charge against the President's record of service in the Air National Guard.

In a new book, Dereliction of Deliciousness, a group known as International Cuisine Enthusiasts for the Truth (ICE T) is alleging that while serving in Texas and Alabama, Bush never entered a Cambodian restaurant.

"There were many Southeast Asian dining options in the immediate vicinity of Ellington Air Force Base in Houston in the 1970's, including Cambodian," said ICE T chairman Neil O'Johnson. "The fact that Bush neglected to try a single one of them raises serious questions about his ability to lead the greatest country in the world."

When asked about his prior associations with the McGovern Campaign in 1972, however, O'Johnson was defiant. "I was not a McGovern protege shill," he told a press conference, "I think a lot of Americans believed that President Nixon was not getting enough curry." That claim was famously contested by former Nixon speechwriter Ben Stein, who claims the former President "kept three kinds of curry stored in his jowls."

Montha Lim, owner of Angkor Wat, a restaurant in Houston serving Cambodian food, said he never saw Bush there. "I would have remembered if the son of a Congressman ate in my restaurant," said Lim, adding, "Try the lemongrass duck."

However, Lim did recall receiving a number of prank calls in 1969 and 1970, in which the caller, in a nasal, inebriated voice, referred to Norodom Sihanouk as "a delicious plate of cheese fries."

At the White House, Press Secretary Scott McClellan defiantly brushed off questions from the press on the matter.

"I reject the premise of your question," McClellan told correspondent Helen Thomas. "None of these restaurants served ribs."