Gov. Jeb Bush denies rumors of affair
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Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, facing published reports of infidelity with a political appointee as he considers a re-election campaign, dismissed the rumor as an "outright lie."
Responding to a reporter's question after a bill-signing in Tallahassee, the president's younger brother said: "These are lies spread by gossip and it's ugly and it's hurtful to my wife and it's hurtful to my family and it's hurtful to other families. I imagine it is political in nature, I do not know."
Bush, 48, had denied the affair in off-the-record conversations with several Tallahassee reporters Friday, but decided to go public yesterday after the rumors were repeated on the Internet and in several Florida newspapers and one British paper.
The woman in question is Cynthia Henderson, an attorney named by Bush to be secretary of Florida's Department of Management Services. She is also, as several accounts have noted, a former Playboy bunny.
At the news conference, an emotional Bush told Mark Silva, the Orlando Sentinel political editor who raised the issue: "The fact that you have to ask that question and I have to answer it is sickening." He said he has been "faithful" to his wife of 27 years, Columba. She did not accompany him. They have three children.
Henderson, who was at the news conference, later said the report was "absolutely false."
Silva said he asked the question because Jeb Bush's aides had told him the governor was ready to answer it. "For months now we've heard the rumors, but there's been not one scintilla of supporting evidence and, frankly, it never struck me as very credible anyway," Silva said.
Bob Poe, Florida's Democratic Party chairman, said he has told supporters "that there's enough bad Bush politics and bad Bush policy that we didn't need to get into any personal matters."
Bush said he would announce next month whether he is running for re-election in 2002.
Henderson, 40, who earns $114,000 a year, had been a director of the Foundation for Florida's Future, a think tank founded by Bush. The governor named Henderson to run the Department of Business and Professional Regulation in 1999 but transferred her to the smaller agency last fall after she kept running into ethics controversies.
Talk about the rumors intensified after columnist Robert Novak wrote May 6 that speculation that Bush might not run again "centers on family troubles."
Tallahassee Democrat columnist Bill Cotterell wrote last week about "the supposed Clintonesque dalliance of two high-ranking officials" and said the details would likely be in next month's issue of Vanity Fair. (Vanity Fair editor Doug Stumpf said the magazine briefly examined the rumors and decided not to print them.)
The rumors were given impetus last week by www.Democrats.com, a Web site founded by a New York consultant who once ran President Clinton's White House Web site. The consultant, David Lytel, said the group is not affiliated with the Democratic Party.
Robert Fertik, the Web story's author, said it was "not intended for publication," but was found by journalists using Internet search engines. Lytel said he is proud of the Web site's role, adding: "There is something to be said for taking these stories that are on the fringe and pushing them into the mainstream."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.