SOROS FENDS OFF CRITICS, ATTACKS BUSH

Billionaire Ends 3-Week Tour With Speech in D.C.

Washington -- Billionaire George Soros brought his outspoken disdain
for President Bush to the nation's capital, where he was trailed
Thursday by "truth squads, " a cottage industry of critics who blast
everything the currency speculator, philanthropist and political
activist says.

Soros concluded a three-week, 12-city speaking tour through swing
states with a speech at the National Press Club in which he laid into
Bush for making the country less safe by the "colossal blunder" of
invading Iraq. The talk was the capper of Soros' $25 million
independent effort to elect Democratic Sen. John Kerry, which has
included large donations to groups such as MoveOn. org, headquartered
in Berkeley, and the new voter registration drive called America
Coming Together.

The critics held two separate press conferences before Soros spoke and
scolded him as a pro-campaign finance reform hypocrite who wants to
limit others' rights to engage in political speech while indulging in
his own spending spree. They criticized him as the financial mainstay
of efforts to legalize drugs like marijuana and beyond and as a master
media manipulator.

The reaction stirred by Soros shows how the huge spending by
independent groups, called 527s for the section of the tax code that
governs them, has moved to the fore in the current campaign, sometimes
overshadowing the message from the Bush and Kerry campaigns themselves.

Soros said that after his swing through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota,
Iowa, Florida and Massachusetts he was "not reassured" that Kerry
will prevail in Tuesday's election.

He attacked Bush for bullheadedness.

"President Bush has shown that he is incapable of recognizing mistakes.
He insists on making reality conform to his beliefs even at the expense
of deceiving himself and deliberately deceiving the public," said
Soros, who travels with a public relations entourage that passed out
free paperback copies of his new book, "The Bubble of American
Supremacy: The Costs of Bush's War in Iraq."

Soros was greeted by the National Legal and Policy Center, a group
with financial ties to conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife,
which announced it has filed a complaint with the Federal Election
Commission alleging that Soros hasn't reported how he spent funds
related to his pro- Kerry speaking tour. Like all other independent
campaign expenditures, the money Soros has spent for Kerry can't be
coordinated in any way with the candidate.

"Soros suffers from the arrogance of wealth," said the center's
president, Peter Flaherty. "He also admits to certain messianic
impulses. Soros wants an open society so long as people agree with
him."

The center has created what it calls the "Soros Truth Squad," which
has trailed the billionaire at many stops on his speaking tour to
provide instant rebuttal.

After his speech, Soros tore into Scaife, who has long financed groups
that attack liberals.

"This shady group backed by this shady billionaire has filed this
complaint," Soros said. "I think I'm well within my First Amendment
rights."

As for being a hypocrite, Soros said he supports toughening the new
McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, but is proud that his early
donations to groups opposing Bush encouraged other rich people to make
similar contributions in what he calls "the most important election of
my life."

A national anti-drug coalition, meeting as the National Summit to Stop
Drug Legalization by Exposing and Opposing Soros, held a lengthy
session in a House office building meeting room supplied by Rep. Mark
Souder, R-Ind. They said the billionaire, who was a prime donor behind
California's successful 1996 ballot initiative to legalize medicinal
marijuana, is out to legalize other drugs.

"George Soros has openly bankrolled medicinal marijuana initiatives
and wants to abandon the war on drugs," said Donnie Marshall, former
head of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

But Soros, whose net worth has been estimated by Forbes magazine at
$7.2 billion, said his critics are attacking him for something he
doesn't believe. While criticizing government efforts to chase the
drug trade, he said he doesn't support legalization of anything harder
than marijuana, which he said he backs only for certified medical uses
for adults.

As for next Tuesday's election, Soros predicted a Kerry victory, based
mainly on a heavy turnout, including the new voters his millions have
helped register.

But if Bush wins he said, "I shall go into some kind of monastery to
reflect. ... I will be asking what's wrong with us."