Admitted admirer of Al Franken...need I say more?
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.
He did not hint he used cocaine , he simply said he was not going to get into answering questions period and would refuse to answer..Look how silly the "I did not inhale"..answer looked..
He did say that children should not be able to say"The President tried it" as an excuse(marijuana)Those answers by Gore and Clinton were not a good thing for children, he implied. I thought he thought the cocaine use rumors were a disgrace but he was not going to get into the game by answering any questions. Just refused to be led by the media ploy.
I believe you and it is probably the truth about that scumbag. NSNR
Liberals are too stupid to be allowed air. Since Clinton was allowed to soil the White House for two terms, no disgusting prior act disqualifies anyone from being president.
So if we have to let the drug sellers and the like out of prison because the liberals JUST KNOW President George W. Bush may have been around a cocaine user once in his life, then we have to let every sexual criminal go free too. We can't have a double standard and pretend Clinton wasn't a criminal too.
Along with Bill Press, and Eleanor Clift.
5.56mm
bump
Hey, not so fast, there were people on this site screaming from the rooftops that they would never vote for Bush the Cokehead. It's not just the looney left but the looney right as well.
You're right on that one.
Nice visual imagery! Conason is a hate-filled twinkie who goes around always mad at the world. Put him and Lawrence O'Donnell in the same room together and they would achieve critical mass in terms of hate.
Yes, but "everyone" knew ..."
Since he's fabricating anyway, you'd think he'd make more effort to support his fantasy.
Klintoon is, was and will always be criminal. Nothing will ever change the fact of this, rapist, coke user, pervert, traitor and psychopath. A born criminal of the left, who the msm gave a pass to indulge in his deranged criminal and treasonous endeavors. President Bush is a man of honor, while klintoon will never know the true meaning of the word. 8 years of scandal, disgrace, impeachment and liberal logic gave us 9/11 thanks to klintoon-commies. NSNR
but I don't recall any talk about coke on the tapes?
Isn't it funny how Conason never had these same complaints about Billy boy and his partner in crime Algore?
You don't know if I used cocaine or not...anyone could say so..but they would be lying..This is a no win game they play..
Conason is one pundit I stopped reading and switch channels if he is on TV...He has NO credibility IMO.
can you request a barf alert? warn future readers...Salon and Co.......bbbllllllaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrffffffffffff!
No, their lives were ruined by the decision THEY made to snort an illegal substance.
They got caught, too bad. They can't afford a high-priced lawyer, too bad. They don't have "connections", too bad.
They knew all this going in, yet they still chose to do the drug. Now it's society's fault they're in jail?
Oh, and if we're supposed to legalize everything GW did (but didn't get caught doing), we're going to have a totally different country.
You have that right! I got in more than one argument about that issue and here we are again actually having someone post an article from Conanson dealing with the same crap. Some things never seem to change -- why give any credibility to someone like Conanson?
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