My View: Bush Audiotapes

By News Director Bob Longo

POSTED: 7:35 am EST February 21, 2005
UPDATED: 12:30 pm EST February 21, 2005

Timing is everything. So is control.

Audiotapes released in the past few days prove both.

In them, then-presidential candidate Bush seems to indicate that while he may have dallied in marijuana and cocaine in earlier "wild" days, he would maintain a strict policy of never talking about either, let alone disclosing the truth while he campaigned.

The tapes have a voyeuristic feel to them, but nonetheless offer a glimpse into the then-candidate's thinking that seems to be maintained to this day. Stay on message. Maintain control of a story and its spin. Repeat as necessary.

If control is something you think the Bush White House lacks, read "In Control" in the most recent American Journalism Review. It details how this administration has perfected its control mechanisms to the point we should expect to see the style mimicked by other current and future officeholders. When the truth may set you free from your office afterall, it is something to be guarded and spun. This may be good news for party hacks and career politicians, but it is bad, sad news for the rest of us.

As for timing...

Pot and cocaine use in a 40- or 50-year-old candidate shouldn't shock anyone. Not even that candidate's parents. But in a campaign for president, those allegations combined with the gasoline of an audiotape of the candidate could easily be spun out of control.

So, while hearing Bush say he wouldn't answer pot questions "Because I don't want some little kid doing what I tried" today may raise nary an eyebrow, hearing this sort of thing in the Fall of 2000 might have very well tipped the scales ... and the votes in favor of Al Gore. Timing.

Of course, none of this nonsense from decades-ago behavior should matter for any of the candidates. But it will.

In a day and age when large chunks of voters and delegates turn on moral values and supposed moral and ethical behavior and opinion, you should expect to see and hear more shenanigans like this spun out of control.

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