E-Mail This Article to a Friend DEBATE AND CONTRAST What happened to the W. of the last debates? BY DAVID S. BERNSTEIN

Next week, George W. Bush will engage in the first of a planned trio of debates with challenger John Kerry. Four years ago, in his three debates with Al Gore, Bush poked repeatedly at the vice-president’s supposed lying and exaggerations ("I’m beginning to think not only did he invent the Internet, but he invented the calculator"). This time around, expect him to skewer Kerry as a flip-flopper just as tenaciously.

But in those debates with Gore, Bush himself said a variety of things that don’t quite square with the W. we know today. Back then, for instance, he said: "If I’m the president ... people will be able to take their HMO insurance company to court." Not only has he helped kill that measure at the federal level, but the Bush administration fought in the Supreme Court against state laws allowing such lawsuits.

Bush also said then that "the surest way to bust this economy is to increase the role and size of the federal budget." But since taking over the federal government, he has increased annual spending by nearly 25 percent.

Just this week, in addressing the United Nations, Bush proposed a "Global Peace Operations Initiative" — a permanent force of 75,000 peacekeepers that the US would help train and supply. Quite a flop from his flip response to the suggestion of a permanent civil peacekeeping force, during a 2000 debate: "I don’t think so," Bush said. "Maybe I’m missing something here. I mean, we’re going to have kind of a nation-building corps from America? Absolutely not."

In fact, the 2000 debates contained a wealth of Bushisms that he couldn’t use Tuesday at the UN, since he is now defending quite the opposite course of action. Consider:

• "I just don’t think it’s the role of the United States to walk into a country and say, ‘We do it this way, so should you.’... I think the United States must be humble and must be proud and confident of our values, but humble in how we treat nations that are figuring out how to chart their own course."

• "I would take the use of force very seriously. I would be very guarded in my approach.... If we don’t stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we’re going to have a serious problem coming down the road, and I’m going to prevent that."

• "If we are an arrogant nation, they’ll resent us. If we’re a humble nation, but strong, they’ll welcome us."

• "I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations.... Our military is meant to fight and win war. That’s what it’s meant to do. And when it gets overextended, morale drops."

You can be sure that George W. won’t repeat any of those words in the debates, but perhaps they could be read to him. What did you mean by them then, Mr. President, and why did you change your mind?