Neither claim is true.

The closest Bailey came to enrolling at Washington & Lee University, where the average freshman SAT scores is higher than 1200, is when he attended Lee Institute School of Real Estate in Brookline, Mass., he conceded Wednesday.

He also isn't a Marine veteran, despite what his official biography has said for 20 years. The extent of his military service was as reservist in a training unit during high school, he said. He never went through formal boot camp.Bailey, 67, who owns a real estate and construction company, called the discrepancies an oversight that he's worked years to correct. Democrats say Bailey's lapse in setting the record straight makes him unfit to serve again.

"It shows a flaw in Bailey, and I think the Republican Party and George Bailey ought to revisit his candidacy," state Democratic Party Chairman Joe Erwin said. "I think he ought to withdraw."

Bailey faces Democrat Lachlan McIntosh for the mostly rural House District 97 race in November.

Accuracy in resumes has become a focal issue in recent years as omissions and fraud have cost some their jobs.

In perhaps the most celebrated case, former Georgia Tech football coach George O'Leary lost the head coaching job at Notre Dame after admitting he made up receiving a master's degree in education from New York University, among other items.

Bailey said he doesn't remember how the "g. (for graduate) Washington & Lee" reference first was included in his Statehouse biography in 1984. He said he changed it in 1999. "I might have said it," he conceded, "instead of the Lee Institute."

Bailey also insisted he had tried to change the "Marine Veteran" listing in his biography. House Clerk Sandy McKinney said Wednesday she has no recollection of Bailey ever making the request but doesn't doubt he tried.

Confirming Bailey's resume is difficult 50 years later.

He said he served with the 53rd Special Infantry Reserve in Charleston sometime around 1953. On Wednesday, Bailey showed a reporter a picture of him wearing a Marine's khaki uniform as a teenager but said he couldn't immediately locate any paperwork from that time.

Local reserve records were not available Wednesday, but the military's National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis has no record of a George H. Bailey with his Social Security number and birth date ever having served in the regular armed services.

The Lee Institute School of Real Estate, where Bailey said he took classes years ago, has changed hands, and records from attendees from more than five years ago are not easily accessible, Director Ron Thompson said Wednesday.

An official from Washington & Lee said any misrepresentation by someone claiming to have graduated there needs to be corrected immediately.

"Our main concern is, especially in this time of transcript and diploma fraud, those people who have earned a degree from Washington & Lee, which is tough enough, don't get compromised by those who did not," said Scott Dittman, W&L's registrar and director of institutional research.

"We're just trying to protect our good name," Dittman said.

The school's general counsel plans to write a letter to Bailey asking him to remove all references to a relationship between him and W&L from the public realm, including Web sites.

Bailey said the controversy isn't enough to drive him from the race. "It won't be my first mistake," he said. "People will judge me on what I did for this community."

McIntosh said the solution is simple: "My parents taught me the best way to stay out of trouble is to always tell the truth."

This isn't Bailey's first run-in with Democrats that has brought accusations of ethical lapses.

Bailey served as a Democrat until the last day of candidate filing this year, when he sudden-ly switched to the Republican Party without telling Democratic leaders about his change of allegiance.

The move left Bailey as the only candidate in the House District 97 race since Democrats had assumed he was seeking re-election as one of them.

After a court complaint, McIntosh was allowed to file as the Democratic Party challenger. Bailey said he saw nothing wrong with the switch.

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