cannabisnews.com: The $37 Million Man Trips Up The $37 Million Man Trips Up Posted by FoM on August 22, 1999 at 08:15:26 PT By Mary McGrory Source: Washington Post The man who promised to "restore dignity to the White House" has had a pratfall. George W. Bush is, to use his father's immortal phrase, "in deep doo-doo." Having vowed he never would, the Republican presidential candidate is answering questions about previous drug use. He has made himself, despite his astronomical poll ratings and his groaning treasury, a mere mortal.Bush's angry progress last week--from Louisiana, where he said emphatically on Wednesday that he could meet the FBI application standard about no drug use in the past seven years, to Virginia, where he said the next day that he was clean during his father's presidency--was the landscape-altering event his opponents have prayed for. His staff has put the cutoff date for doing what he has not yet admitted doing at age 28. The awkward question of whether he could qualify for a White House staff appointment, the application for which asks about drug use back to age 18, is still hanging in the air.Can he survive? He can. He is still personable and engaging. He still has his record as a madly popular Texas governor. He still has his name, which stirs Republican pride--and guilt that his father lost to Bill Clinton. He has the cover of claiming to be born again on his 40th birthday. He has discussed his wild youth. Did it end at 40? Republicans have a more extended view of when middle age begins. Chairman Henry Hyde of the House Judiciary Committee, which sat in judgment on Clinton, called his own affair with a married woman at the age of 46 "a youthful indiscretion."In striking back, Bush has lashed out at the press, at "the politics of personal destruction." He has sought to be praised for his refusal to play "the Washington game" of making a candidate prove a negative. He played the same game himself quite enthusiastically when he told the world that he had been a faithful husband. It was plainly an attempt to cast himself as a person morally superior to the current occupant of the White House.For Bush, the worst aspect of the whole thing may be that he has now invited comparison with Clinton, the man he is trying to run against. Bush strategists know that the man who will likely be the Democratic nominee, Al Gore, suffers greatly from Clinton drag, the so-called "Clinton fatigue" that keeps the vice president sinking in the polls.Bush isn't handling drug queries any better than Clinton did in 1992. When the governor of Arkansas was asked, as were all politicos who grew up in the tumultuous '60s, if he had been part of the drug culture, he tap danced for months. He started out with "none of your business"--but the press continued to press. Clinton said defiantly that he "had never broken the laws of my country."Finally, during the New York primary, a reporter framed it more sharply: Had Clinton used drugs as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford? He admitted that he had "experimented with marijuana." His embellishment, that he "didn't inhale," has passed into the political lexicon as a synonym for weaselly irrelevance. The questioning ended there.Bush, however, must expect more. Bush's blanket alibi of behaving irresponsibly when he "was young and irresponsible" will not suffice. It won't satisfy people serving stiff cocaine sentences in Texas jails. It could well be that Bush had his own family rather the country in mind when he was stubbornly refusing to answer questions about drugs. Drug counselors urge users to keep their past a secret from their children. Bush is the father of teen-age twin girls.Whatever his reasons, he now has a new and daunting mission to perform. He must demonstrate that he is a serious person, a premise seriously questioned in a story by Tucker Carlson in Talk magazine. Carlson is a pleasant young conservative with a sharp pen. He depicted the governor as a swaggerer deficient in the compassion he claims. Bush laughed at a woman whose death sentence he declined to commute, Carlson wrote.Bush was miffed by what he regarded as friendly fire. His excuses were lame: It wasn't a serious interview, they hadn't been seated at the time.Bush was First Son at the White House; he must have watched his father stand up at a microphone and speak of momentous things. He should know that many presidents fling headlines over their shoulders while hurrying to their helicopters.Now he has to prove he is a thoughtful man who considers carefully what he says. He has to convince the country he learned something important from his wild youth. It doesn't matter what he did 25 years ago. But what he says about it does matter. He must, in short, demonstrate maturity. We've had a teen president for the last seven years. It may not be quite time for another. Sunday, August 22, 1999; Page B01 © Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company'Youthful Indiscretions' Less Important Today - 8/22/99http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread2579.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #4 posted by FoM on August 22, 1999 at 12:51:02 PT: Maybe Change Is In The Air! That's right and another way of saying it is a person reaps what they sow. Drugs are a reality in all walks of life and now that drug use is getting media attention maybe we will see some changes soon! I can't help but think so! Governor Johnson was great on Meet The Press this morning! He said more then once that the drug war is a failure!Peace, FoM! [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by Freedom Fighter on August 22, 1999 at 12:15:32 PT The Bush What goes around comes around. The very politicans who pass these outrageous drug are now finding that they also have to live with the results of their actions. GW Bush is no different. [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by FoM on August 22, 1999 at 09:31:04 PT: Related Article Sunday, August 22, 1999 MIKE DOWNEY By MIKE DOWNEYhttp://www.latimes.com/Doing the Texas Sidestep Bill Clinton says he smoked, but didn't inhale. (I do exactly the same thing, but with cigars.) George W. Bush says that if anybody wants to know whether he has used illegal drugs "within the last seven years," the answer is no. (George W. cannot tell a lie. He just has a roundabout way of getting to the truth.) Al Gore says he used marijuana a few times in college, in the Army and in graduate school. (Good to see he at least waited until after his high school prom.) Elizabeth Hanford Dole just says no. (Although her husband has been known to use a popular, legal, uh, recreational drug.) Bill Bradley says he tried marijuana several times in the early 1970s. (Thereby making Bradley the first and last basketball player ever to do so.) (Well, maybe not.) Pat Buchanan says no. (I bet Buchanan doesn't even take aspirin. Buchanan causes other people to take aspirin.) Orrin Hatch says no. (Thus resisting the popular toast: "Down the Hatch.") John McCain says no. (He must not have run into Oliver Stone during the war.) Dan Quayle says no. (I can't picture Quayle taking drugs. Flintstone vitamins, yes, but that's it.) Substance use is a substantial issue in the 2000 campaign for the presidency, in no small part due to Bush, the memory-impaired governor of Texas. After a victory in the Iowa straw poll, Bush has been busy fielding questions about everything except whether he ever actually smoked Iowa straw. First he was asked about drug use. We like to ask people who want to be president of the United States about their drug use. We're funny that way. Bush didn't say yes and he didn't say no. What he did say was what erstwhile Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee once referred to as "a non-denial denial" and what a Mel Brooks movie once referred to as "authentic frontier gibberish." Dancing a little sidestep, the gabby governor's verbatim response was: "Somebody floats a rumor and it causes you to ask a question, and that's the game in American politics, and I refuse to play it. That is a game. You just fell for the trap. I refuse to play. They're ridiculous and they're absurd, and the people of America are sick and tired of this kind of politics. And I'm not participating." Boy, when that consciousness begins to stream, it really streams, doesn't it? A day later, Bush was asked: If he became president--like father, like son--wouldn't a customary FBI background check inquire about all of Bush's appointees' past drug use? Bush didn't exactly hem, although he did haw a little. "As I understand it," he said, "the current [FBI] form asks the question, did somebody use drugs within the last seven years, and I will be glad to answer that question, and the answer is no." Well, swell. That at least got us back to August 1992. You remember 1992, when conservatives and comedians all across America had a laugh- and-a-half over Democratic presidential candidate Clinton's admission that he had once puffed on something other than a saxophone. Clinton nonetheless was able to defeat and unseat Bush's dad. Then came seven years of "inhale" jokes, which have dragged on right up to the first paragraph of this column. George Bush the Younger continues to come clean, a little at a time. A day after his "seven years" avowal, Bush proceeded to say that he could have passed a background check "when my dad was president of the United States." Good. That got us back to January 1989. Furthermore, with calendar pages falling like cherries off a tree, George W. indicated that he also could have cleared such a check dating back 15 years from George H.W.'s term as commander in chief. Kind of a semi-mea culpa. "I'm going to tell people I made mistakes and that I have learned from my mistakes," said Bush, who has learned mainly, like most presidential candidates, not to tell us what those mistakes were unless somebody makes him tell. Oh, and a word for all you moms and dads out there: "I don't want to send a signal to children that whatever I may have done is OK," Bush says. Whatever you may have done. I guess we have to guess, George. After being reelected, Clinton made a promise to help us "build a bridge to the 21st century." Bush, fudging the truth just as Clinton has, could be the guy who finishes building Bill's bridge, which seems to be made of Scotch tape. Just speak plain, George. You get a staggering amount of money donated to you. Voters like to know about a candidate before they vote, rather than after. They're funny that way. You're from Texas. Be a big man. Stand up and talk straight. You shouldn't expect us to forget everything from your past except the Alamo. Mike Downey's column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053. E-mail: mike.downey latimes.com [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by FoM on August 22, 1999 at 08:47:59 PT: Related Article Bush Lacks Compassion On Drugs As I See ItSan Francisco Chronicle http://www.sfgate.com/Pubdate: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 Author: Cynthia Tucker Whether or not he'd make a good president, George W. Bush seems a likable guy. By all accounts, he is easygoing and affable, lacking the meanness and moral hypocrisy that have characterized too many GOP leaders over the past several years. It is unlikely that his near-admission of past use of illegal narcotics will damage his standing with the voters. The American public is mature enough to accept something less than perfection in its politicians, understanding that it would be hard to find enough people to run the country if they all had to swear to a history untainted by adultery, illegal drug use, drunken escapades or foul language. But as the runaway front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, Bush needs to own up to the good fortune of his race and affluence, which have combined to allow him to escape the harsh punishments doled out to black and brown users of illegal drugs. America's hard-core prisons count among their inmates men and women whose only crimes have been to abuse their own bodies and betray their own families. Bush needs to moderate his tough law-and-order stance enough to admit that the so-called war on drugs is nothing but a race- and class-conscious farce. For months, Bush has attempted to dodge questions about whether his party-boy past included using cocaine. While all the other presidential contenders have issued broad denials of cocaine use, he has refused to do so. And last Wednesday, he gave only limited denials, the first in response to a question from the Dallas Morning News about background checks for highranking presidential appointees. "As I understand it, the current form asks the question, 'Did somebody use drugs within the last seven years?' and I will be glad to answer that question, and the answer is no," Bush said. Later, Bush said he had not used illegal drugs for a period of at least 25 years. Though that is unlikely to put the matter to rest (even Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, a prominent Bush supporter, has urged him to stop dodging the question), it is also unlikely that the voters would care if Bush were to admit having used cocaine. Nevertheless, there is something troubling here, more troubling than whether a high-profile politician ever abused illegal narcotics. Bush seems never to have compared his own experience to that of the thousands of men and women who have been sentenced to Iong stretches in prison for anything more than possession of small amounts of cocaine, usually in crack form. Might some of those men and women have gone on to become productive citizens - public officials even - - if they had not been ensnared by an unfair criminal justice system? As the GOP front-runner, Bush has a prominent post from which to denounce the inequities in federal drug laws. Under federal law, it takes 100 times as much powdered cocaine as crack to land you in jail. Here's another inequity: Though African Americans make up 13 percent of the nation's regular drug users, they represent 35 percent of narcotics arrests, 55 percent of convictions and 74 percent of those receiving prison sentences, according to the Sentencing Project, an advocacy group that lobbies for alternatives to prison. It doesn't matter whether Bush used cocaine seven years ago or 17. What does matter is whether the ease with which he has rebounded from all his youthful indiscretions left him with compassion or merely arrogance. UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATECynthia Tucker is editorial page editor of the Atlanta Constitution. [ Post Comment ] Post Comment Name: Optional Password: E-Mail: Subject: Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message] Link URL: Link Title: