http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/2007/01/bush-cocaine-chronicles-complicity-and.html
Thursday, January 4, 2007
The Bush Cocaine Chronicles: Complicity and Cover-up
John Seery
01.04.2007 s )
Fox News Reporter Kirian Chetry blurted out what she assumed was common
knowledge among the media cognoscenti: that George W. Bush had used cocaine in
his past and yet had politically survived the exposure of that (criminal)
indiscretion. Her on-air colleagues scrambled to "correct" the record: no, no,
no, the cocaine accusations against Bush have never been proven beyond a
doubt--so let's quickly shift the conversation away from Bush's drug past and
instead bring up, for one more go around, Bill Clinton's admitted marijuana use
alongside the recent revelation about Barack Obama's possible cocaine use.
Let's blow some smoke in Bill's direction, he never inhaled, ha, ha, ha.
Whew, that was a close one! Fox News surely didn't want to open that door into
Bush's creepy closet, and they tried to slam it shut. Maybe the stress of the
Iraq War, compounded by the growing abundance of Afghani poppy plants, is
triggering memory flashbacks. Whatever the reason, the "cocaine issue" is back
in the news--it just won't go away.
What amazes me is that here we are, six years into Bush's presidency, and the
press still refuses to treat the longstanding stories about Bush's cocaine use
with the severity and scrutiny that such charges surely deserve, given the high
level stakes involved. The issue is no longer simply how and why Bush has
successfully dodged the topic for his entire political career. The story now
should be why the press has treated him with kid gloves for so long.
On one part of this story, Bush's record is perfectly clear: in every political
campaign he has ever waged, he has skillfully evaded "the cocaine question,"
probably in much the same way that he avoided appearing for his drug test while
serving in the National Guard. We've seen this character defect of his more
recently: namely, all the lies and evasions and slipperiness that have
contributed to, and culminated in the calamity that is the Iraq War. But Bush's
character defect was there all along to see for anyone who wanted to take a
good look at it. The U.S. press corps evidently decided, however, simply to
look the other way.
I speak from first hand experience, an insider's vantage, on this particular
issue. Several weeks before the 2000 election, I submitted to the Los Angeles
Times an op-ed piece about the charges swirling around Bush's alleged cocaine
use. The next day the Times Opinion Section editors left lengthy telephone
messages on both my home and office message machines: Yes, they wanted this
piece very much. Yes, they were going to publish it in the next Monday edition.
It was a definite go, not just an acceptance for the "queue." Come Sunday,
however, I received another call: It turns out, er, we won't be using it now,
not at all. No explanation beyond that. Gads, I thought. That was a dramatic
180-degree turnaround. I've never received a personal call at my home for a
rejection. Someone clearly had put the kibosh on the story, overruling or
prevailing upon those who once had been very keen about and committed to the
piece.
Read it for yourself--I reproduce it below. Jonathan Singer, now with myDD.com,
reprised the piece on his own blog in September of 2004, at a time when the
cocaine issue had once again become current with the publication of Kitty
Kelley's The Family, which included the shocking charge that George W. Bush had
used cocaine at Camp David during his father's presidential term, i.e., past
George W. Bush's 40th birthday. Did the press (let alone the Justice
Department) investigate these allegations as diligently and as tenaciously as
they probed into Whitewater or Monica-gate?
In hindsight, knowing what we now know, imagine if the media had given the Bush
cocaine issue its due in the fall of 2000. What if our national press editors
and media pundits had insisted that Bush give a clear and candid answer to the
cocaine issue before the 2000 presidential election? You know what I'm getting
at. It doesn't take a leap of brilliance to fill in the blanks. To wit: Our
nation would be much better off today if members of the mainstream media had
simply done their job on that score, rather than abdicating their vigilance for
the sake of decorum. How much responsibility should they bear today for our
current state of affairs? You decide--I'd like to hear your responses.
A Tragic Unfolding of Character
John Seery October 2000
Has George W. Bush ever used hard drugs such as cocaine? Even as a
scrutinizing campaign season draws soon to a conclusion, the American public
still doesn't know Bush's answer to this question. He has groused about, danced
around, and heretofore successfully evaded the famous "cocaine question," and
shockingly news editors and press pundits have deferred to his annoyance over
the matter. Media reporters across the nation, unable to find hard confirmation
of earlier allegations about possible drug use in Bush's past, haven't even put
the question to candidate Bush for many months. The silence is curious. Yet for
many reasons--for one, to avoid another grueling impeachment trial of a sitting
U.S. President--the American electorate deserves an unequivocal answer to this
question, which indeed holds public, not simply personal ramifications. George
W. Bush should step forward before the election and volunteer a simple and
clear answer: yes or no.
Rumors about past drug use have dogged Governor Bush since his first days
running for governor, but rumors should be regarded as only rumors until proven
otherwise. Yet Bush for years has prolonged the rumor mongering about his
alleged drug use by ducking and dodging the issue. He has created a climate of
additional suspicion, intrigue, and ambiguity. His evasiveness raises questions
about his current, not just about his past character and candor.
Even more troubling, possible use of cocaine raises a question not just about
character, but about Bush's legal fitfulness for elected office at all. If he
indeed used cocaine, he would have committed a felony. If convicted as a felon,
under almost all state constitutions he would lose the right to vote and the
right to hold elected office. Surely the American people deserve to know: Are
we about to elect a felon, albeit an unconvicted felon, to the Presidency of
these United States?
In 1994, when asked about drug use in his campaign for governor of Texas,
Bush replied, "What I did as a kid? I don't think it's relevant." But it was
and still is relevant, if only because his dismissive response reveals a
profound misunderstanding of the severity of the charge. Imagine if he had
sidestepped a similar question about other felonies such as armed robbery or
rape. Moreover, if the rumors are true, namely that Bush used cocaine in
college through the end of his military service at age 26, he certainly wasn't
a "kid" at the time but was an adult citizen of this country, especially in the
eyes of the law.
About a year ago, during the presidential primaries, 11 out of 12 candidates
in both parties denied ever using cocaine. George W. Bush was the sole
candidate who refused to answer the question. He quipped, "When I was young and
irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible." But youthful irresponsibility is
not the same as felonious criminality, and most state constitutions observe
that distinction quite strictly.
At the time, the press probed for more details. Bush first said that he could
pass the kind of background check required of Clinton administration employees,
which meant in effect that he had been drug-free for the past seven years. On
further prompting, he said that he could pass the kind of background check his
father imposed on White House employees, which was interpreted to mean that he
has been clean for the past 25 years, since he was 28 years old. A bevy of
dubious reports then emerged about "lost weekends in Mexico" and about failed
or deliberately skipped military medical exams hinting provocatively at hard
drug use.
Bush fended off a media frenzy by saying that he refused to play the game of
"gotcha" politics and would answer no more drug-related questions about
himself. His parents, George, Sr. and Barbara Bush, both defended their son's
"principled" refusal to talk about his "misspent youth," though they admitted
that they had never actually asked him about drug use. Apparently the Bush
family wanted the media to follow suit, thus abdicating their responsibility to
serve as a vigilant fourth estate. Indeed, many media commentators started
lamenting gutter journalism, tabloid tactics, and privacy intrusions, as if it
were beneath their dignity to inquire further into George W. Bush's most basic
track record as a law-abiding citizen, or not.
"Gotcha" politics based on youthful or private indiscretions are regrettable.
Many members of the boomer generation indulged in "recreational" drugs in their
youth, and maybe we should concentrate instead on their more recent public
behavior, policies, and qualifications. But a distinction needs to be drawn
between "hard" drug use on the one hand, and marijuana use, heavy drinking, and
womanizing on the other--because the former was and still is felonious. Our
democracy does not allow felons to participate in most forms of electoral
politics, and voters tend not to reward those exhibiting felonious behaviors by
electing them to high office. Whereas then-candidate Bill Clinton feebly
confronted but nevertheless diffused the issue of his youthful marijuana
smoking by claiming that he "never inhaled," George W. Bush cannot effect a
similar triangulation by saying that he "sniffed but never snorted" cocaine.
Were he to admit such a serious crime, compounded by a calculated cover-up, he
would either need to leave office or be forced to leave, just as drug-aided
Olympic athletes must return their gold medals even after the competition is
over.
George W. Bush has waged his entire presidential campaign on character. He
has promised to restore honor and dignity to the Oval Office. No one, even a
President, should be above the law, he has told us. He wants the President to
be able to serve as a role model for our kids. He wants to be able to speak
straight from the heart without needing to appeal to obfuscations such as "no
controlling legal authority." But his fuzzy answers and fuzzy memory on the
drug question, left unchallenged by a complicit or obsequious national media,
belie and potentially sabotage his high-minded aspirations. The American public
deserves to know in advance whether he is legally fit to uphold the laws of our
land. If he has nothing to hide, then he should exonerate his good name as soon
as possible.
READ MORE: George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, United States, Iraq, Barack Obama,
United States National Guard
John Seery is Professor of Politics at Pomona College, where he teaches
political theory.
Okay, some of you (hi mom!) have suggested that I include a more elaborate
bio on the Huffpost, so here is my stab at the customary third-person, slightly
self-deprecating yet transparently self-important account of myself, cast in a
factitiously triumphal register:
A native of Cedar Rapids, Iowa and a working stiff by circumstance and
inclination, John Seery was a paper boy at age 11, a member of a carpenter crew
at 15, and a card-carrying Teamster truck driver at 16 (while avidly playing
basketball and saxophone along the way). He was graduated from Amherst College
summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and was awarded one of the last national
Danforth Fellowships (Purina Dog Chow money that was used, in those days, to
pay for the entirety of one's graduate education, the bygone purpose of which
was to support and improve the mission of teaching among the nation's future
professoriate-but such Danforth Fellowships are no more, sigh). He received his
M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in political science from the University of California
at Berkeley and went on to teach at Stanford University, University of
California at Santa Cruz, and Tufts University before landing at Pomona
College. Twice he has received Pomona College's Distinguished Teaching Award.
He is author of several books: Political Returns: Irony in Politics and
Theory from Plato to the Antinuclear Movement (Westview, 1990); Political
Theory for Mortals: Shades of Justice, Images of Death (Cornell, 1996); America
Goes to College: Political Theory for the Liberal Arts (SUNY, 2002); Jesus for
President: The Case for a Constitutional Amendment to Lower the Age
Requirements for Elected Federal Office (not yet published); and, with Daniel
W. Conway, is co-editor of The Politics of Irony: Essays in Self-Betrayal (St.
Martins and Macmillan, 1992). Currently he is collecting and editing a volume
of original essays for the University Press of Kentucky, called Democratic
Vistas Today: The Political Companion to Walt Whitman. His scholarly
articles-on the works, respectively, of Aeschylus, Plato, Marx, Weber, Thomas
Mann, Max Weber, Grant Wood, Judith Butler, and others-have been published in
journals such as Political Theory, Theory & Event, Polity, History of Political
Thought, Journal of Nietzsche Studies, and Soundings. His op-ed pieces have
appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, Le Monde Diplomatique,
the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, the San Gabriel Valley Times, and the
Philadelphia Independent.
As for hands-on political experience, what there is of it: He worked briefly
in DC for former U.S. Senator Dick Clark (not the American Band Stand guy);
dined and danced at the White House on the occasion of Jimmy Carter's first
State of the Union address; witnessed UC Berkeley Sproul Plaza protests on a
daily basis during the Reagan years, participating in more than a few; attended
numerous rubber chicken fundraisers and other political events when his wife
worked for a prominent California state senator; served as the founding
President of the Friends of the Claremont POOCH Park; served as a City
Commissioner in Claremont; and, over the years, became a grizzled veteran of
many bruising academic sandbox battles, which, in retrospect, now seem petty
and utterly unimportant.
He resides with his wife and two children in Claremont, California.
