Replies

"Well, I remember when it happened and here's a lib source confirming my statement."

In that case I take it all back. If a lib source says something it must be the gospel truth. (not)

"The following day, Bush shifted the boundary back farther, stating that, at the time his father was inaugurated as president in 1989, he would have passed the background check that was then in force, which required a statement that the subject of the check had not used drugs in the previous 15 years."

I don't think George Bush said that. Did he personally ever say that he would have passed an FBI background check at the time his father was inaugurated as president in 1989? He did say no when he was asked if he had used drugs in the past seven years, but I don't think he personally elaborated on that later, although others did. If he wanted to he could come out and clear the whole thing up by simply denying that he has ever used cocaine, but he won't do that.

"If nobody shows up, there's no story," he told Mr. Wead, "and if somebody shows up, it is going to be made up."

That's no denial. That could be an honest statement by a man who did use cocaine but has good reason to believe that the few people who may have seen him do it wouldn't come forward and talk about it. Right after making that ambiguous statement he clearly stated that he hasn't denied anything. Clearly, if he hasn't ever done cocaine and he wanted to put this to rest all he would have to do is say he's never done it. But he made a conscious decision not to do that and by doing so has left it open for people to believe what they want to believe.

This isn't worth arguing about. Personally, I'd rather he just set the record straight. I wouldn't think less of him if he had used cocaine, LSD, whatever, or not back when he was younger. But he's made it clear that he isn't going to talk about whatever past drug use that may or may not have occurred in his younger days, so we'll probably never know. Seems like he's trying to hide something to me, but maybe not. It's not really that big of a deal.