The leading Republican presidential contender claims the Web site -- containing material that highlights the potential contradictions between Bush's murky past and his "tough on drugs" stance today -- violates Federal Election Commission and copyright laws. The Bush campaign has filed complaints and cease-and-desist letters to shut it down.

But FEC rules and regs appear to have taken a back seat to the schoolyard bully's code of conduct: If the scrawny little guy you've been picking on brings in his big brother and a few oversized friends, it's time to rethink the original strategy.

In early December, the Massachusetts-based computer programmer Exley, 30, received a call from the Rutherford Institute -- a conservative legal defense organization whose celebrity-making case history includes the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit against President Clinton.

The Institute became interested in Exley's case after it was featured in a Washington Post article in November. Soon thereafter, they offered to serve as Exley's legal defenders. Exley agreed.

"[The Bush campaign] hasn't really said anything since," Exley said.

Rutherford Institute president John Whitehead said his group is ready to square off against Bush's should they decide to press on with their case.

"If they pursue this any further, of course, we'll be there with lawyers," Whitehead stated. "We've already contacted some affiliate law firms, and they're interested in taking this case. So whatever happens, he'll have a formidable defense.... If [Bush] wants to fight this out, we're ready and willing and would have a lot of fun doing it."

The central claim now being reviewed by the FEC is that gwbush.com's content constitutes advertising that's termed an "independent expenditure." Said Donald J. Simon, a Washington-based lawyer and specialist in FEC regulations: "An 'independent expenditure' is a public communication that expressly advocates the election or defeat of a federal candidate."

Considering that early in its history, gwbush.com did run a banner headline stating, "Just Say 'No' to a Former Cocaine User for President," Bush's lawyers may have a point. Benjamin L. Ginsberg, the lawyer for Bush's FEC complaint against gwbush.com declined to comment.

But not so fast, says Exley. "A Web site is the same as the press," he said. "It's the same thing as a person publishing a newspaper. The press has an exemption under the law; the press is allowed to endorse candidates, and it doesn't have to register with the government."

Should Bush's FEC complaint succeed in shutting down gwbush.com or subjecting it to the morass of federal election advertising regulations, Simon said, it would represent a major backsliding in freedom of speech at the expense of political opportunism.

"You don't want somebody sitting at home creating a Web page to have to file a piece of paper with the Federal Election Commission," he said, "because that will have a chilling effect on political activity.

"On the other hand, you don't want to have corporations spend millions of dollars buying ads on the Internet influencing federal elections in a way that evades the ban on corporate spending in federal elections that's been on the books since the Teddy Roosevelt administration."

However, as all parties on the defense are concerned, even if the FEC ruling comes in favor of Bush, the litigious wrangling will have only begun. There's also the matter of Bush's allegations that gwbush.com linked to pornography Web sites. Exley said those claims are so damaging and unfounded that he's now considering a defamation lawsuit against Bush.

"[Exley] said he would just like this to end and would like an apology from Bush," Whitehead said.

"But, you know," he continued with an ironic glint in his voice, "we tried that with Paula Jones."