WASHINGTON: President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry are debating big issues, to be sure, but in the race toward the November 2 presidential election, no trip-up, no character flaw in a presidential candidate is too small to pass up.

Bush's campaign team has whipped up a storm about celebrity performances from a New York fundraiser for Kerry last week. Bush campaign director Ken Mehlman said the performances were inappropriate, and called on Kerry to release a videotape of the show.

He promised not to use any clips in Republican advertisements. During the fundraiser, frank-talking comedian and actress Whoopi Goldberg made sexual puns with the president's name.

"I called on your campaign to release the performance that senator Kerry said represented the 'heart and soul' of America so that all Americans could see for themselves what John Kerry thinks represents the 'heart and soul' of our country," Mehlman wrote in a letter to Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill.

"Do most Americans in their hearts, think that calling the President a 'thug' and a 'killer' represents the 'heart and soul' of our nation?" Cahill responded the day after the event.

"We find your outrage and paparazzi-like obsession with a fund-raising event to be misplaced," she told Mehlman. "The fact is that the nation has a greater interest in seeing several documents made public relating to the president's performance in office and personal veracity that the White House has steadfastly refused to release.

"As such, we will not consider your request until the Bush campaign and White House make public the documents (and) materials listed below," and she went on to list the president's military records for the time Bush is suspected of not having served; earnings of Halliburton, an Iraq war contractor, which Vice President Dick Cheney led until he joined Bush; documents leading up to the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, among others.

The exchange reflects a presidential campaign that has become increasingly sharp since Kerry chose Senator John Edwards as his running mate, and has returned to Bush's favourite turf: values.

Kerry on Thursday highlighted the president's refusal to attend the annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP), the largest and oldest African American group in the United States.

"I understand you've been having trouble getting some speakers," Kerry joked to the convention in Philadelphia. "I will be a president who is truly a uniter, not one who seeks to divide our nation by race or riches or by any other label," Kerry said.

NAACP officials said Bush was the first US president since Herbert Hoover (1929-1933) to miss their annual convention. The race is close, with very few voters yet to have made up their minds, say experts.

Bush himself fired at Kerry for praising the values of celebrities at the New York fundraiser. Kerry told the Washington Post in an interview that the value of truth "is one of the most central values in America, and this administration has violated" it. Their values system "is distorted and not based on truth," he said. -AFP