Posted on 12/15/2003 4:53:08 PM PST by Sub-Driver
Edited on 07/06/2004 6:39:27 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Please provide an exact charge by any reputable person or institution where George W. Bush was EVER accused of using cocaine.
Not something you read on a freaky web site or in a throwaway "biography." A credible charge.
We require a valid, reputable link and/or article.
As I said on another thread today, I believe Rush got the majority of those pills for his mother who died of cancer in 2000. He was determined to make her last days as comfortable as possible; he even did his shows from her place.
.
Most of the people here think that the 50 states are 50 experiments in unlimited majoritarian socialism and seem to be incapable of imagining that the 50 states are supposed to be 50 free and limited republics. I have gone around in circles with many people here for many years trying to explain this to them. From their authoritarian points of view, the federal government gets to devour all rights of the people not specifically enumerated in the federal bill of rights, and then, the state governments get to devour all remaining rights of the people (should their be any such), state bills of rights notwithstanding.
Section 1 Florida Declaration of Rights:
All political power is inherent in the people. The enuncia-tion herein of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or impair others retained by the people.
So, the rights to privacy, to eat food, and to stuff hillbilly heroin by the handful into one's mouth don't need to be enumerated in Florida's constitution either!
The gymnastics that FR's authoritarians play with the plain language of our bills of rights are amazing. For example, read the discussion above in this thread where somebody says that eating is part of the enumerated "right to life" but apparantly privacy isn't. Amazing! He wouldn't want to rely on retained rights of the people, because nobody talks about old relics like the 9th Amendment and ALL rights being retained by the people. As though we have to hunt around for an enumerated right to justify everything that the government allows us do. The idea of a free republic where the people decide for themselves what their rights are vis-a-vis their servant, the government, has been nearly completely bred out of the American people.
From Lysander Spooner's Trial by Jury:
The object of this trial “by the country,” or by the people, in preference to a trial by the government, is to guard against every species of oppression by the government. In order to effect this end, it is indispensable that the people, or “the country,” judge of and determine their own liberties against the government; instead of the government’s judging of and determining its own powers over the people. How is it possible that juries can do anything to protect the liberties of the people against the government; if they are not allowed to determine what those liberties are?
There's still time for Rush to have a libertarian epiphany and start reading from Spooner on his radio show, but I'm not holding my breath. This scandal is being used to consolidate America's acceptance of the police state, not to jolt "conservatives" into libertarian epiphanies.
Matter is a kinda undefined term. I asked because I didn't remember and I was curious. From the replies I've gotten, I guess no one else knows either.
In part...Having acknowledged that questions about background checks were legitimate, Bush backed into yet another trap. When nbc's David Bloom noted that current White House appointees must list any drug use since their 18th birthday, Bush suddenly stopped answering and ducked back behind his stone wall. He'd admitted making mistakes; if voters didn't like that answer, he said, "they can go find somebody else to vote for. That's the wonderful thing about democracy."
By the end of the day Bush aides were calling their predicament a strategy. He has drawn the line, they said, marked out the statute of limitations, said he hasn't used drugs in 25 years. (If anyone proves he did use drugs after 1974, says an old Bush adviser, "he's cooked.") Pressing these charges when there is still no evidence to support them is just going to backfire on reporters, they argued, not without reason in light of the growing disgust with jugular journalism. But it was still a screwup, and in many private phone calls in and out of Austin, Bush loyalists admitted as much--just not to Bush. A long-distance ally says of the Austin staff, "No one's got the brains or b____ to go in and say, 'Governor, you are really, really hurting yourself.'"
What had some friends worried was that the story wasn't just about cocaine. Drugs and alcohol are, in the unchoreographed dance of candidate, reporters and voters, metaphors for something that actually matters: whether a candidate has the gravity and judgment to be President. This time last year, the country was practically screaming at Clinton to tell the grand jury the truth and all would be forgiven. Last week it wasn't just Bush's gleeful rivals who were saying he should confess any relevant sins. Well-meaning allies were telling the Governor the same thing and warning that the alternative was worse, damaging Bush's principal claim to the White House--the fact that he's not Bill Clinton.
Bush presents himself as a straight-talking Texan who does not mince words or parse meanings, does not run late or overeat or flirt with women not his wife.His biggest applause line is his vow to restore dignity and honor to the office. And so it was positively painful for friends to watch the Governor admitting that he made mistakes when he was younger but that "I don't want to send a signal to children that whatever I may have done is O.K." His nondenial was not as bad as Clinton's infamous "I never broke the laws of my country," but it was sung in the same key.
Well, thanks, you made my point for me.
Just as you have "asked a question here on FR," David Bloom threw a theoretical question out to Bush -- and Bush didn't take the bait. But you can beat that David Bloom intended to leave the impression that you bought -- that Bush had, in fact, done cocaine without a scintilla of proof.
And you're mad about that?
And, say, do you still beat your wife? Did you ever get those pedophile charges off your record?
You see how that works?
You, nor David Bloom, has provided one iota of proof, much less a valid accusation, that George W. Bush EVER did cocaine, but you're willing to throw it right out there.
You are a pawn for the liberals in trashing Bush; you took the question Bloom asked and, never bothering to verify it, passed it on.
Now, I ask you, what's the difference in you, and in this man?
Whopper of the Week: Howard Dean
Slate ^ | 13 December 2003 | Timothy Noah
Posted on 12/16/2003 5:06:01 AM EST by Spiff
Whopper: Howard Dean
Oh, that bizarre and irresponsible remark!
Timothy Noah
Posted Saturday, Dec. 13, 2003, at 7:08 PM PT
Scott Spradling, WMUR-TV: Governor Dean, you had once stated that you thought it was possible that the president of the United States had been forewarned about the 9/11 terrorist attacks. You later said that you didn't really know.
A statement like that, don't you see the possibility of some Democrats being nervous about statements like that leading them to the conclusion that you are not right for being the next commander in chief?
Howard Dean: Well, in all due respect, I did not exactly state that.
—Exchange at the Democratic presidential debate in Durham, N.H., Dec. 9.
Julie from Traverse City,* Mich.: [O]nce we get you in the White House, would you please make sure that there is a thorough investigation of 9/11, and not—
Dean: Yes.
Julie:—stonewall it?
Dean: There is a report which the president is suppressing evidence for which is a thorough investigation of 9/11.
Diane Rehm, WAMU (public) radio: Why do you think he's suppressing that report?
Dean: I don't know. There are many theories about it. The most interesting theory that I've heard so far, which is nothing more than a theory, I can't—think it can't be proved, is that he was warned ahead of time by the Saudis. Now, who knows what the real situation is, but the trouble is that by suppressing that kind of information, you lead to those kinds of theories, whether they have any truth to them or not, and then eventually they get repeated as fact. So I think the president is taking a great risk by suppressing the clear, the key information that needs to go to the Kean commission.
—Exchange on The Diane Rehm Show, on WAMU in Washington, Dec. 1.
Discussion. In answering Spradling at the New Hampshire debate, Dean failed to acknowledge his Diane Rehm Show appearance, in which he introduced the bizarre and irresponsible accusation that Bush got advance warning about 9/11 (ostensibly as an example of the kind of speculation Bush lends credence to by not cooperating with the Kean commission). Dean's denial that he said what Spradling said he said is false and dishonest if you take the Diane Rehm appearance into account. Spradling's summary of Dean's remarks was more than adequate, with the trivial caveat that Dean said then and there (and not "later") that he didn't know whether the rumor was true.
Instead of talking about the Diane Rehm Show appearance, Dean pretended, at the New Hampshire debate, that the subject first came up when he appeared on Fox News Sunday six days later:
I was asked on Fox "fair and balanced" News that—
[Audience laughter.]
—I was asked why I thought the president was withholding information, I think it was, or 9/11 or something like that. And I said, well, the most interesting theory that I heard, which I did not believe [italics Chatterbox's], was that the Saudis had tipped him off. ... I did not believe [italics Chatterbox's], and I made it clear on the Fox News show that I didn't believe [italics Chatterbox's] that theory, but I had heard that. And there are going to be a lot of crazy theories that come out if the information is not given to the Kean commission as it should be.
By the time Dean appeared on Fox News Sunday, someone had obviously pointed out to him that his conspiracy-mongering on Diane Rehm made him sound like a nut. So, on Fox, Dean made sure to say what he most crucially had not said on Diane Rehm—i.e., that he did not believe this rumor that he was passing on.
Incidentally, on Fox News Sunday, Dean wasn't asked "why I thought the president was withholding information" or "something like that." He was asked (by Chris Wallace) why he'd made that embarrassing gaffe on Diane Rehm, and whether, in light of what he'd said, he was "up to being commander in chief." Wallace even played the Diane Rehm clip. Two days earlier, Charles Krauthammer had savagely attacked Dean for what he said on Diane Rehm and pointed out that when Cynthia McKinney made the same accusation in 2002 it ended her career in Congress. So, it's inconceivable that in his New Hampshire debate remarks Dean sincerely forgot, or misremembered, what he said on Diane Rehm.
Ironically, if Dean had answered Rehm's question more carefully, he could have stated truthfully and non-hysterically that the Bush administration did receive various hints prior to 9/11 that something was afoot. These have already been documented. (Remember National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice's description of pre-9/11 "chatter in the system," including a warning from the Federal Aviation Administration in July that terrorist groups might be planning hijackings?) Where Dean went astray was in failing to make clear that these advance warnings were not very specific.
Look Dean is a fool. You know it, I know it and 99.9% of the readers of this forum know it. His fantasy is simply that. I'm sure Bush receive many "general" warnings about Al-queda. It's all in a days work. What Dean is pushing is taking those unculled briefings and trying to make them run.
Now back to our situation. Bush was asked two personal questions that I know of during the campaign. One was the cocaine question that he ducked (several times, not just Bloom's) , the other was regarding marital fidelity. The President (then candidate) did answer the marital fidelity one with a resounding no. So why did he Clintonesque the drug question. Both questions were the old "beating your wife question". He answered one quickly, matter of factly and without consulting his entourage. The other question wasn't handled so deftly and as a matter of fact, pretty much in a Clintonian manner.
As I stated, I voted for Bush and will vote for him again in '04. I even have on my desk my 2003 Republican National Committee membership card. (557012290-C126).I'm not here to rabble rouse, just to respond to someone who engaged me in a conversation. I presented facts and now there are some who want to say my allegiance is in question.
Cry me some tears Joe. Your sincerity, I must say, is touching.
I was asked for a credible link or article (by Howlin). I provided one. Now all I get is a bunch of "dancing around the issue". Sorry. You said Clintonbegone: First of all, Bush wasn't charged with doing coke in the oval office. Second, he did address all those charges during the campaign. Facts are a wonderful thing if you use them. I've done my share of the burden, now it's your turn. Did he say yes or no to the answer? Even Howlin has indicated he didn't because it was the "did you beat your wife" question. Now it seems you and Howlin differ in your anwers. Howlin says it wasn't worthy of an answer. You claim he dealt with it. Seems to be some disconnect.
My vote still stand in 04.
I think Howlin and I are very much in agreement. My point was that he dealt with the issue. The ISSUE raised by rabid Bush hating ankle biters. You appear, along with the other Bush haters, not to accept that. You'll have to live with yourself on that Joe.
Now, do you still beat your wife?
I can truthfully answer no. If you're willing to pay for a lie detector both of us will take such a test to confirm what I just said.
And thank you for calling me a Bush hater. I'm not. I have been critical and reserve the right to be. Rush has always said that when liberals can no longer support their arguments, they resort to name calling. Seems conservatives can do it too!
As I have stated previously, I believe President Bush has overall done a pretty good job. There have been mis-steps. Anyone cannot foresee all and know all.
But the fact remains the comments were Clintonesque. Evasive. Does that make him a bad man or a bad President? Not in my opinion. But too many here cannot accept that there is not fawning dedication to the President.
Bush will not be as great as Reagan. But he will be a good President.
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