Posted on 02/27/2005 7:50:54 AM PST by rface
No reporter ever asked the Texas governor why all those other people deserved to serve five or 10 or 20 years in prison, when their crimes were no different from what everyone knew he had done, whether he admitted it or not.....Joe Conason wonders why the president is punishing drug users for offences he has also been linked to.
On the audiotapes of George W. Bush recorded secretly by his erstwhile confidant Douglas Wead in 1999, the future president revealed how much he feared candid discussion of his personal use of marijuana and cocaine. As quoted in The New York Times, Bush vowed that no matter what rumours and facts circulated about what he did or might have done, he would doggedly decline to answer forthrightly.
His natural urge to protect his privacy evokes sympathy, however quaint his expectations might be at this point in our political history. But in justifying his refusal to talk about his foolish youth, he appealed to a higher purpose. "I wouldn't answer the marijuana questions," he told Wead. "You know why? Because I don't want some little kid doing what I tried."
For many American parents of a certain age, that self-serving yet poignant response must strike an empathetic chord. Concern that children will mimic parental misbehaviour is universal, and so is the impulse to conceal embarrassing truths. Bush rightly worries that children imitate adult models in the belief that they, too, can escape the consequences.
When Bush uttered those words, he was in his second term as governor of Texas and on his way to the White House. After all, if he could drink too much, smoke those forbidden herbs and perhaps even snort illegal powders and nevertheless become a successful politician, then "some little kid" might reasonably assume he or she could sin likewise without undue risk.
Any such assumption would be terribly mistaken, of course, unless the kid happened to belong to a wealthy and well-connected family like the Bush clan.
Prisons and jails across America are crowded with non-violent drug offenders whose lives have been ruined — and whose families have been damaged or destroyed — by the same punitive legal system that never touched young "Georgie," except to issue him a drunk-driving summons.
The poor and the black are incarcerated for using pot and coke, while the rich and the white lie to their kids (and occasionally to the voters) about those same transgressions.
Certainly that was how the justice system worked when Bush and Wead had their candid chats. The Texas politician couldn't reassure his friend that he hadn't used cocaine, let alone marijuana, but as governor he was imprisoning young people unlucky enough to be arrested in possession of those narcotics, often for draconian mandatory-minimum sentences. He always cherished his image as a tough, swaggering, law-and-order politician who didn't hesitate to imprison teenagers. But that isn't what happens to people from good families.
His niece Noelle Bush went through a drug-rehab program and was released two years ago. His friend Rush Limbaugh went through rehab and has returned to berating the less fortunate on the radio, without doing one day of time.
The lopsided cruelty has only escalated since Bush entered the White House. Federal agents have cracked down on medical users of marijuana, depriving them of a substance that eases their sickness and keeps them alive.
The human and economic costs of the drug war continue to swell. So burdensome are those costs that many conservatives, including such Bush tutors as former secretary of state George Shultz, have publicly pleaded for saner policies.
Despite his claims to be a "compassionate conservative," Bush has ignored those pleas. He seems to feel that if he overcame his substance-abuse problem, then nobody else really has an excuse.
No reporter ever asked the Texas governor why all those other people deserved to serve five or 10 or 20 years in prison, when their crimes were no different from what everyone knew he had done, whether he admitted it or not.
No reporter will ask the president that question today, either, although it is just as pertinent in light of his revealing conversations with Wead.
Indeed, Bush not only avoided public responsibility for his own past mistakes but found a clever way to turn those wayward years to political advantage. He brandishes his late return to sobriety as a symbol of his Christian faith.
It is hard to tell what Bush learned in his recovery from sin, except that other people got caught and he didn't.
That would be enough to make anybody smirk.
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Joe Conason is the author of The Hunting of the President:The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton.
I don't have the link. I have the memory. I said where I saw it last. That's the extent of my interest in research.
"In California 90% of the budget goes to employee salaries."
Link please. I believe the biggest expense is health care.
Why not? Thank you for the friendship and agreement.
"I don't have the link. I have the memory. I said where I saw it last. That's the extent of my interest in research."
Irresponsible charge you're making there.
ha-ha-ha,, I didn't see your comment yet I posted basically the same thing in that I heard a rumor that he's a Transvestite.
(hmmm., maybe the rumor is true?)
Joe Conason has not written word one about L.D. Brown's confrontation with Gov. Clinton about cocaine being brought into Mena. Until he does, Conason can be taken seriously on none of this. His head is so far up Clinton's butt that I don't think he has seen the sunshine for several years.
Reeeaallly. Post up your source. I want to read it, and the part where "the Bush campaign anf W himself" talk about using coke.
do a FR search -Bush, cocaine-, and hit older threads at the bottom of the list. You'll get a couple of other threads with related quotes. Then you can be responsible.
I'll be back tomorrow for your explaination that Bush was lying when he said he didn't use in 25 years.
I never said I thought I heard something. Pay attention. I said I heard the statements directly from the staff member and then W. You need to read more closely.
The best answer I can give is that the problem is so huge it is beyond solving anymore.
Your reference to health care is the state budget. My reference is to the CDC departmental budget. Not much money for inmate programs. My source, since, you're so hung up on them, my 28 years in the system, 3 as a Business Administrrator in Chino.
ROFL! (I was gonna post 'Gertrude!' but yours is better.)
marajade, bigsigh is only interested in posting up the Leftist smear, not any actual documentation.
Who do you believe, bigsigh's memory, or your lying mind's insistence on seeing the facts?
That's the extent of my interest in research.
His FR initials, bs, may have a secondary meaning... ;-)
So we can either pretend our boy is clean or we can acknowledge the hypocracy of this situation and insist on some consistent adherence to basic principles of fairness and justice, especially when imprisoning people.
All this thread does is call the messenger a scumbag. It does nothing to address the issues presented by our current and previous drug using presidents.
In the words of Franklin Pierce (14th POTUS): "...there's nothing left to do but get drunk"
You have made an interesting choice. The president did not do coke and anyone who says so is a liar. It must be nice to be one of the true believers and ignore the realities of a self-proclaimed non-denial.
I'll drink to that. However, I think when FP was around coke was legal.
For me, it was highly addictive. I had to stop doing it. (Not that I ever did all that much, but I always wanted more. One more line.) It had weird effects on me.
It was also hellaciously expensive.
I know of a few people that it did kill, plus one who is currently in prison for killing his in-laws to get the money he needed to support his habit, which reputedly ran upwards of $6000 per month. That included entertaining his friends.
Bad stuff.
I thought LSD was interesting, but dangerous in a different way. Not addictive, but...
I liked MDMA. I'd do more of that if I could get some.
My own problem is booze. That is tough enough to beat. I don't need any others.
I'll be back tomorrow to see what other personal attacks you have made. TTFN!
I need lessons on reading from someone who isn't interested in reading for research? What a load of bigsigh.
BTW, someone who points out that a dubious story about a Pubbie has got "Made In Left" written all over it isn't automatically a "Dubya is pure" kool-aid drinker.
Get over your bad self.
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