Posted on 09/22/2004 12:32:04 AM PDT by Cableguy
A Texas man who is quoted in Kitty Kelley's new book about the Bush family as saying that the first lady, Laura Bush, smoked and sold marijuana in her college days, said on Tuesday that his remarks were taken out of context. He said he had no firsthand information about any drug-related activity by Mrs. Bush.
The man, Robert Nash, is quoted on Page 575 of Ms. Kelley's book, "The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty." Speaking of Mrs. Bush, Ms. Kelley writes: "She graduated from Southern Methodist University in 1968 and had been known in her college days as a go-to girl for dime bags of marijuana. 'She not only smoked dope,' said Robert Nash, an Austin friend of many in Laura's S.M.U. class, 'but she sold dope.' "
Ms. Kelley could not be reached for comment either through her literary agent, Wayne S. Kabak, or her publisher. David Drake, the director of publicity for Doubleday, the book's publisher, said the company was "extremely confident of the accuracy of the comments attributed to Robert Nash." Mr. Drake said that Ms. Kelley had spoken with Mr. Nash on three occasions and that she had tapes and notes from the conversations. Mr. Drake said he would not say whether anyone at Doubleday had heard the tapes.
Mr. Nash contacted The New York Times by e-mail on Sept. 15, one day after the newspaper cited him in its review of the book as the source for the passage about drugs. In an e-mail exchange responding to questions from a reporter, Mr. Nash did not deny the statement attributed to him but said that in his conversation with Ms. Kelley he had merely acknowledged the existence of a rumor.
"With the clear understanding that I was chatting with her off the record," he wrote, "we discussed many things.''
"Additionally, Ms. Kelley was chasing down various Austin rumors," Mr. Nash wrote. "I acknowledged that I had heard of various old rumors but said that as far as I knew they had been thoroughly explored years ago by the national media to no avail. Also, I made it perfectly clear that I had no direct information, and that if she was to pursue this she needed to look elsewhere."
In his e-mail messages to The Times, Mr. Nash said he was traveling in Italy and had only periodic access to e-mail. He declined to offer a telephone number or the name of a hotel where he could be reached. There was no response to a request for him to call the newspaper collect.
Why is the NYT publishing an article that is at all favorable to Pres. Bush?
Looking for credibility?!
Boy, wasn't that what C-BS and Dan Rather were saying about their "source" just last week...:^)
I can't give The New York Slimes credit for publishing anything favorable to President Bush, I think this is just their sneaky way of bringing the subject to attention again.
That's what I was thinking. Maybe the CBS deal was a wakeup call, but when it comes to the NYT, I'm sure not gonna hold my breath.
Yep, that was the other thought I had.
liberal guilt, and they don't want to get blamed if he goes to Wash Post with the same story
Kitty Kelley is on the short-list to replace Dan Blather.
She'd fit right in with the folks at CBS news.
You mean like how confident CBS was with their unimpeachable source? LOL
I heard that she's really a French hermaphrodite.
If NBC's Today Show cared about being fair, it would now interview Robert Nash for three days on how corrupt Kitty Kelley is.
This fits with what Bob Colcacello, who's writing a book about the Reagans, has said. He commented that what Kitty Kelley does is take every unsubstantiated rumor she's ever heard about the person she's writing about, and put them in the book. Even Chris Matthews got Kitty Kelley to admit that Nash didn't know Laura Bush at SMU, yet she wrote this guy's rumor as fact.
Ms. Kelley could not be reached for comment
What a great photoshop idea!
Bingo! Exactly my thought as I was reading this.
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