In preparing for the 1992 presidential debates, George Bush armed himself with a list of "zingers" to ridicule his Democratic rival, Bill Clinton, who lacked Bush's breadth of foreign policy experience.

"If Clinton seems perplexed by [a] foreign affairs question," the zinger script suggested, hit him with this put-down: "Now I know what to get you for Christmas - a world globe." Another planned Bush riposte to a hoped-for Clinton stumble was: "If you ever go on 'Jeopardy,' don't choose the category, 'Foreign Heads of State.'"

Prepared zingers are a staple of candidates looking for clever -or humorous - ways to catch the public's attention with what appear to be spontaneous jests highlighting an adversary's weaknesses. But former President Bush's zingers could now become stingers aimed at his son, Gov. George W. Bush, who is earning a reputation for stumbling over foreign policy questions.

Former President Bush was known for his knowledge of foreign affairs. But it seems Dad did not pass on this expertise to his son. Gov. Bush recently failed a pop quiz from a reporter who asked him to identify the leaders of four current international hot spots. Bush could only name one. He has also flubbed a number of statements about foreign policy, calling "Kosovians," referring to Greeks as "Grecians," and mixing up Slovenia with Slovakia.

Later, in his own defense, Gov. Bush told ABC's Sam Donaldson, "America understands that a guy doesn't know the name of every single foreign leader." But back in '92, Bush's father took a much less generous view toward then-Gov. Bill Clinton's inexperience in foreign affairs. Bush had his staff prepare a long list of anti-Clinton zingers for possible use in the presidential debates or later in the campaign.

Four pages from that zinger script were released recently by the National Archives in response to a Freedom of Information Act request that I filed for documents from the so-called Passportgate investigation -- a special-prosecutor inquiry into the Bush administration's search of Clinton's passport files in 1992.

The list of zingers was included in those files because some of the jokes referred to Clinton's foreign travels in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union while he was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford. Prosecutors saw the zingers as evidence of White House involvement in the State Department's passport search. They questioned Bush about the zingers after he lost the election, but ultimately no criminal charges were brought. And yet, the investigative files offer not only a rare look into the inner strategies of the Bush re-election campaign, but a ready-made opportunity for Gov. Bush's opponents to turn the tables on him.

Besides focusing on foreign affairs knowledge, the zinger list also included jokes about Clinton's avoidance of service in Vietnam. Here, too, Gov. Bush's background closely parallel's President Clinton's. Gov. Bush escaped duty in the Vietnam War by snaring a prized spot in the Texas National Guard, a position apparently given him at the request of a well-placed political friend of his father.

On the topic of Clinton's draft avoidance, the zinger list offered President Bush a range of options. "During the war, Waldo played 'Where's Bill?'" read one prepared joke. Another went: "Put it this way - Vietnam Vets don't collect Bill Clinton trading cards." Still another: "At Oxford, the governor experienced pre-traumatic stress syndrome." Or another: "Mr. Clinton was going through a mid-war crisis." One scripted joke would have been directed at Clinton face-to-face: "Ever wake up in the middle of the night with Oxford flashbacks?"

But the zingers that could cause Gov. Bush the most discomfort today are the ones scripted for his father that now read like unintended endorsements of Gore, the Democratic front-runner in the 2000 campaign To zing Clinton if he were struggling with a foreign-policy point, Bush was scripted to say, "Al Gore can't help you now." Another comment would have suggested to voters: "On the campaign trail & when the Governor's asked a question, notice how he always turns to Al Gore for help. Will Al Gore have to chaperone him to summit meetings?"