The Cocaine Question

Barack Obama's memoir written 11 years ago states that he used cocaine. It's the first time that a potential candidate has admitted to using drugs. Sure, Bill Clinton said he tried marijuana but didn't inhale. (I drink Coca-Cola...but I don't swallow.) And there were questions on whether Al Gore had used marijuana. But this is different.

Some would think that Obama's candor about the subject is a breath of fresh air. But leave it to the FOX pundits to try and make this an issue. Somewhere along the way however, it went wrong.

FOX reporter Kirian Chetry obviously didn't get the talking points memo for the "Obama Cocaine Confessions" segment and blurted out, "he [Obama] talks very candidly, as did our current president, who admitted to using cocaine, correct? Well, who wrote, somebody wrote in a book -- well, he admitted that he had an alcoholic, he had a drinking problem. Who was it who said they witnessed him using cocaine? It was somebody who wrote a book..."

Here's the video:

The denials from the other FOX heads are pretty funny. They don't remember anything like that.
Well, let me refresh some memories out there. A Google search of "Bush cocaine use" revealed 1,290,000 results. The first was a CNN article from August 20, 1999 entitled, "Bush faces new round of drug questions". I didn't really need to go any further from there.

From the article: "Bush Thursday denied using illegal drugs over the past 25 years, but refused to discuss his younger years for fear of sending 'a signal to children that whatever I may have done is okay.' "

So at this point in time, you are led to believe that prior to those 25 years, Bush used illegal drugs.

"Bush [had] been peppered with questions about drug use after he was asked in an interview with the Dallas Morning News whether he could pass a background check for federal employees.

That check has a question asking prospective appointees if they have used illegal drugs within the past seven years. Bush said he could pass that exam. On Thursday, he said he could have passed a background check when his father began serving as president in 1989.

Later, an aide clarified the remarks, saying Bush has not used illegal drugs in at least the last 25 years."

Read the entire article and subsequent ones on a cursory search and you'll find that Bush has never answered the question. If he had never used cocaine, why didn't he just answer no?

Here's the best part of the CNN article:

"A TIME/CNN poll of 344 Republicans nationwide taken Thursday show 56 percent prefer Bush as the GOP nominee...

Perhaps even more importantly, only 11 percent of all voters polled -- and only 9 percent of Republicans -- feel that proof of cocaine use in his 20s should disqualify Bush from serving as president. A resounding 84 percent of voters and 87 percent of Republican voters felt just the opposite -- that they did not feel proof of cocaine use in his 20s should disqualify Bush."

Can we now get on to the business of the country? Can we talk about more pressing issues like the deficit, the illegal war in Iraq, Halliburton's war profiteering, the Mississippi Gulf Coast or getting our troops home? Probably not.