|
|
|
Jewish World Review Feb. 24, 2005 / 15 Adar I, 5765 Oh, hurt us some more By James Lileks
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The evidence would seem to suggest that President Bush tried reefer as a young man.
Well, there goes his chance for a third term.
We refer of course to the secret tapes of Gov. Bush, made by an old pal, Doug Wead — who, by some odd turn of events, has a book to sell. Bush comes off quite well on the tapes — tart, straightforward, politically canny, and given to handing out frat-boy nicknames. (He calls Wead "Weadnik," but the tapes end before we learn if he called John Ashcroft "Croftmeister" or "Ashy-Ash.") In other words, the Bush some know and love, or the Bush some don't know and hate.
Perhaps The New York Times put the reefer reference high in its story, as it were, to focus national attention on the stunning revelation that young Bush did not walk the straight and narrow path before he got religion. Will the charges thrill the nastier depths of the Bush-hating blogs? It's hypocrisy, don't you know. Conservatives are against drugs, Bush probably tried some, and ergo they have no moral standing to conduct the war on drugs. Legalize them! Let a thousand meth labs bloom!
It's a strange sort of "gotcha," and might make more sense if President Bush had previously insisted he spent his formative years in a monastery copying out Bible verses.
In a way, the tapes' revelations illustrate the virtues of hypocrisy: "I don't want some little kid doing what I tried," Bush insisted. Every parent understands this: Your past may not contain the lessons you wish to teach. "Well, son, once I got so stoned my hands felt like canned hams, and I put the car in the river and sank to the bottom, but once I remembered it was a convertible, I swam right out. So heck, smoke up; here's the keys."
The tapes highlight another issue about which the right is frequently called hypocritical: Bush and gays. Which brings us to a matter burning up the lefty blogs: the Jeff Gannon case. He was a reporter for a little-known conservative news service who got access to the White House press room, and a controversy burbled up when this supposed Bush fave and possible (gasp!) Rove plant had a past connected to gay escort services.
Because Bush and the right oppose gay marriage — at least by judicial fiat — they are therefore homophobic, because there is no other possible reason to oppose redefining marriage. Zip. Right? Ergo discovering that a Bush-friendly reporter in the White House pool had a salacious gay past reeks of hypocrisy, because A) Bush called on him a few times, and B) surely he was planted by Lord Rove — whose devious ability to micromanage every jot and tittle of modern political theater seems to have abandoned him here.
The tapes, however, show that Bush harbored no animus for gays. Wead says that a supporter was telling people Bush had promised not to hire gays. "No, what I said was I wouldn't fire gays," Bush says, irritated. In one passage Bush recounts a meeting with a minister who seemed to wish Bush would knock the gays for kicks 'n' grins. "I not going to kick gays," he said to Wead, "because I'm a sinner. How can I differentiate sin?" He later remarked that "this is an issue I have been trying to downplay. I think it is bad for Republicans to be kicking gays."
You could read the second statement as an expression of political calculation, but you can't ignore the first one. You can disagree with the terminology — the "sin" bit strikes many as quaint, no doubt — but you don't see a man who can't wait to start the pogroms. No matter; it won't endear him to his enemies. At this point, nothing could.
Wead says he has more tapes. Perhaps there's a playground conversation from second grade in which young Bush expresses his doubts that European diplomatic pressure will be sufficient to keep Iran from getting a nuke. Sure, release it all; never mind those pesky privacy problems. If this is the sort of damaging material Bush's foes have hoped for, Sith Master Rove can be thinking only one thing: More, please. Oh, hurt us some more.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in uplifting articles. Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
© 2005, James Lileks | ||||||||||
