The Wead among the Bushes

From the New York Times:

As George W. Bush was first moving onto the national political stage, he often turned for advice to an old friend who secretly taped some of their private conversations, creating a rare record of the future president as a politician and a personality.

In the last several weeks, that friend, Doug Wead, an author and former aide to Mr. Bush's father, disclosed the tapes' existence to a reporter and played about a dozen of them.

Variously earnest, confident or prickly in those conversations, Mr. Bush weighs the political risks and benefits of his religious faith, discusses campaign strategy and comments on rivals. John McCain "will wear thin," he predicted. John Ashcroft, he confided, would be a "very good Supreme Court pick" or a "fabulous" vice president. And in exchanges about his handling of questions from the news media about his past, Mr. Bush appears to have acknowledged trying marijuana.

This looks like the “big” story of the day -- in spite of it's trivial content. As the day passes I expect Liberals (and the various sub-group thereof) to twist the content of the tapes to claim all sorts of nasty things about Bush. Conservatives, I expect, will focus on the sleaziness of Wead for making the tapes in the first place.

After reading the transcripts provided I see an admission of experimentation with marijuana, and the rational for not revealing it to be based on concern for children (remember Bush was speaking privately to what he assumed was a close friend -- he had no motive to lie or put on a false face) We also see a denial of cocaine use, something the Libs will conveniently ignore.

As for his comments on homosexuals, it paints the picture of a man who doesn't get the religious right's true attitude toward homosexuals. We don't want to discriminate either, but we do want to acknowledge that certain lifestyle choices make one unqualified for certain roles. A homosexual as a cabinet member? If the person was discrete about it and didn't allow his lifestyle choice to influence his or her decision, why not? As Ross Perot said, how would we know?  The point is, if the individual makes it an issue themselves, then, sorry, it's an issue. The vast majority of people on the religious right would agree with those sentiments in regards to an individual. A few wouldn't, but then we recognize that the minority of homosexual activists who actually believe and claim that heterosexuality is a mental illness do not reflect the bulk of homosexual activists, let alone homosexuals, therefore we'd expect the same courtesy.

It's sad that Wead chose to go the sleazy route to research and promote his book, but in the end the “exposed Bush”, looks pretty good.

Coverage: Outside the Beltway,

Posted by Jack Lewis at February 21, 2005 09:54 AM