Word: drugged
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...first big public test of Bush's instincts and of his staff, and the results were pretty wobbly. On Wednesday morning in New Orleans, Sam Attlesey of the Dallas Morning News pulled Bush aside to ask him yet another drug question, this time about whether, as President, he could meet the same qualifications as the people he hired when it came to FBI background checks concerning illegal drug use. Bush was at first confused, and he gave his stock answer about not cataloging the sins of his distant past. Then he and his team piled into the motorcade to head...
...suite with his longtime friend and finance chairman Don Evans, finance director Jack Oliver and media adviser Mark McKinnon, he kept chewing on the question. The calls went out, to chief strategist Karl Rove and communications director Karen Hughes. It was one thing to refuse to talk about drugs--but this was about White House security and double standards. "Imagine the ad our opponents could make if we didn't answer the question," said an adviser. "'As President, George W. Bush would maintain a double standard when it comes to illegal drug use by White House employees...
...elected, but like his father, who wasn't. George Sr. had an expression that went like this: If you're so damned smart, how come you aren't President of the United States? That cockiness surfaced like a genetic code in his son's handling of the drug questions. Even some aides who privately wished he would put the rumors to rest were convinced they'd be slapped down if they suggested it. "The lasting damage to Bush is not that now everyone thinks he did drugs," an adviser says. "No one cares about what you did 30 years...
Happily for Bush, the only folks in an equally squirmy position were the reporters raising the questions. There was still not a shred of evidence of drug use. A lot of reporters wouldn't much like to answer these questions themselves. Voters have made it clear they don't care. In June, 60% of voters said they thought candidates should answer questions about cocaine use, but after last week's ruckus, less than half thought so. And when Bush argues that his answers are part of a principled fight to clean up the process, he is appealing to a palpable...
Bush all but said the other candidates, with their instant denials and coy cooperation with the witch-hunts, were taking the easy way out. By answering any and all questions, they imply that nothing is out of bounds, not even questions about rumors of drug use from an unelected press corps that has its own skeletons. His approach was harder to pull off: raise the bar, create a zone of privacy, don't fall into the trap of trying to prove a negative. The problem is that Bush went about his nondisclosure selectively. In a political age when biography...