inhale...

Seems that Mr. Bush didn't only do a lot of drinking when he was younger. Unlike some others, he inhaled! Not only that but he didn't want to "kick gays" and lesbians for fear of losing the mainstream but chose (I wonder under whose aegis?) to go with the backing of the religious right to get elected.

This is the worst kind of politics. While others will focus on the pot smoking, the real story lies in the unscrupulousness of the elite to use any means to get into power and force their own agendas on the people. A New York Times article about a series of tapes made by Doug Wead, without the alledged knowledge of Mr. Bush, reports a number of conversations between the two while Mr. Bush was deciding to run for the presidency.

There is a lot of insight into not only Mr. Bush but also Wead, a former aide to Bush's father, who says he made the tapes because, "I believe that, like him or not, he is going to be a huge historical figure," Mr. Wead said. "If I was on the telephone with Churchill or Gandhi, I would tape record them too." This is almost like a comparison of Bush to Churchill or Ghandi. Quite a stretch.

Regarding Bush's willingness to do anything to win the presidency the tapes reveal someone who is not afraid to do what has to be done. Mr. Bush could hardly contain his disdain for Mr. Gore, his Democratic opponent, at one point calling him "pathologically a liar." His confidence in the moral purpose of his campaign to usher in "a responsibility era" never wavered, but he acknowledged that winning might require hard jabs. "I may have to get a little rough for a while," he told Mr. Wead, "but that is what the old man had to do with Dukakis, remember?" Strength in a leader? Maybe. But earlier in the tapes he takes umbrage with the "liberal media" trying to dig up dirt on him:

He complained repeatedly about the press scrutiny, accusing the news media of a "campaign" against him. While he talked of certain reporters as "pro-Bush" and commented favorably on some publications (U.S. News & World Report is "halfway decent," but Time magazine is "awful"), he vented frequently to Mr. Wead about what he considered the liberal bias and invasiveness of the news media in general.

What is the difference between the two comments? Willingness to do whatever it takes? Self-rightiousness and self-importance?

Why are the tapes being made public at this time? Why disclose the tapes? "I just felt that the historical point I was making trumped a personal relationship," Mr. Wead said. Could it be part of an unwritten agenda? Is the role of history being taken into consideration? Or, rather, that a revisionist slant on the history to be written is starting to be put into play?

no telling what could have happened if Mr. Clinton had only inhaled...