August 28, 1999

Sermon On the Stump Could Wash Away Bush’s Sins

George W. Bush, Republican front-runner for his party’s presidential nomination, inadvertently began negotiating his status as a cocaine user when responding a deftly crafted question by a Dallas Morning News reporter.

Previously, George W. refused to answer such questions. He said it was “gotcha journalism” based on unfounded rumors floated by Democrats.

However, the reporter’s query was baited with a tempting caveat: “Would Bush insist that appointees to his administration be required to answer standard FBI background questions about drug use during the preceding seven years, and could he meet that standard?”

After thinking about it overnight, Bush allowed as how the question was legitimate in that it concerned his governing policy. His answer to both parts was “yes.”

A following newscast inferred that Bush might have taken cocaine as recently as seven years ago. Later that day, Bush told reporters he could have passed the 15-year test of his father’s administration that began in 1989.

This effectively pushed back George W’s drug-free zone by 25 years to 1974 when he was 28.

This effectively pushed back his cocaine-free period to the last 25 years. Nevertheless, he still did not deny ever having used the drug. The media pounded him to flatly admit or deny the allegation. Bush stoutly declares he will say no more.

Conservatives waver from pushing for confession, to accusing the press of a double standard that hound Republicans and excuse Democrats.

Rival Gary Bauer says “I don’t seen how you’re going to be able to get away from anything that involves a felony.”

Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, another challenger to Bush, says, “My advice is just answer the darned question and get rid of it.”

Dan Quayle, formerly vice-president to the elder Bush and now a nomination candidate, opines that “once you start talking about it, you are obliged to answer most of these questions.”

Bob Bennett, former Secretary of Education for father Bush, is more direct. “Earlier this year, Juanita Broaddrick made a specific, credible allegation that Bill Clinton raped her 21 years ago,” says Bennett. “Her charges are supported by at least five witnesses.

“The only response from the president – a pathological liar who was found in contempt of court for giving ‘false, misleading and evasive’ answers – was a statement by his lawyer that the charge is ‘absolutely false, and we are not going to comment.’ Amazingly the media let the story die.”

A poll by Yankelovich Partners for CNN and Time magazine shortly after the cocaine dustup shows that 84 percent of the respondents said that if Bush used drugs in his twenties, it should not disqualify him from the presidency.

High-level scandals have – as democrat Sen. Patrick Moynihan once observed – “defined deviancy down.” Sen. Gary Hart, a Democratic presidential candidate in 1984, was knocked out of the race when photographed with a bikini-clad young woman not his wife) on his lap.

Since then we have had a president whose popularity has increased steadily despite a career of sex, adultery, drugs, perjury, and obstruction of justice. Some of these are sins answerable to social morality, but some are felonies liable to law.

Thus, Republican Gov. Gary E. Johnson of New Mexico, admits -- without serious, political penalty – of once using both cocaine and marijuana.

Also fessing up is Lincoln Chaffee who is running for the Senate seat being vacated by his father, John Chaffee, Republican. Lincoln says, “I had three choices – lie, which was not an option, or evade it and receive the consequences, or be honest. I chose to be honest.” He admits he tried cocaine several times in 1974 as a college student.

There is another option that George W. Bush et al overlook – reformed victim. In these days of political correctness the role is a sure-fire winner. Bush should go before a church convention – a la John F. Kennedy -- with something like this:

“I made a mistake when I was 25 (or whatever) of trying cocaine and getting hooked. But I broke that habit with another addiction, alcohol. With the help of my family and my spiritual faith, I also broke the bonds of alcohol. I know the evils of drugs and drink first hand.

“I have been saved from these scourges for 20 years. I want to be president of the United States so I can help pass along that blessing to the thousands afflicted by substance abuses. And -- most particularly – to help protect our children from such temptations. That is my first and most important issue.

“A reformed sinner is the most committed to reform. I ask your forgiveness and blessing in this great task before us.”

Amen, Brother George.

Ushers, pass the plates.

By Lindsey Williams, columnist for Sun Coast Media Group newspapers