Could a Concealed Cocaine Charge Be the Reason?

[stepnw1f]

Bush Press Secretary Refuses to Answer "Yes" or "No" on Court-Ordered Community Service

Could a Concealed Cocaine Charge Be the Reason?                    

If you've read my documented evidence of Bush's absence without leave (AWOL) from the National Guard and my recent op-ed on this, you know that the heart of the question is why Bush refused a direct order from the National Guard suspending his pilot's license and ordering him to take a medical examination that included a drug test.  Bush has never explained why he quit flying, but his refusal to say whether he was using cocaine at the time provides a clue.  Another clue is the Houston community service that Bush performed in early 1973 -- totally out of character for him -- that provides a likely reason why Bush missed guard duty.  Was this community service court ordered so as to expunge his cocaine charge?

Check out this amazing exchange yesterday between veteran political reporter Helen Thomas and Bush press secretary Scott McClellan.  Why won't McClellan give a simple "yes" or "no" to Thomas's question?

http://radioinsidescoop.com/wst_page19.html

[Newsjock]

1. You win the beautiful lounge suite!

And I will personally send $10 to the first reporter to ask Chimpy this question during a live, televised White House news conference.

[benburch]

2. Cocaine gets you laid, or did back then...

I wonder if he was seducing young girls with it?

[RoeBear]

10. Wow!

Quite a leap.

[benburch]

18. He could END all the baseless speculation...

...by coming clean!

(And that's the point.)

[RoeBear]

19. By coming clean and saying...

...he was an AWOLing, coke sniffing, child molester? Not likely.

[benburch]

20. Until he comes clean...

... we are free to imagine that community service was for ANYTHING.

[RoeBear]

21. We can imagine...

...that he is Hitler's love child. What's the point?

[benburch]

22. Too young for that!

The point is that he is covering something up. We can reasonably know that. Until and unless he comes clean on what he was convicted of, we should make it clear that we will spin that it was SOMETHING TERRIBLE, because that is just how the Republicans would spin this against any Democrat. I think we need to feed back to them just a taste of the fecal porridge they have been dishing out to us since Clinton won in '92.

[DenverDem]

3. Common knowledge in Texas.

Along with the current gov's same sexcapades.

[MsUnderstood]

4. Can I answer your question?

Can I answer your question? Sure it is. Can I ask you why you're asking it? I'm just -- out of curiosity myself, is that permissible?

hahaha that was funny...answering a question with a question

[Nevernose]

5. Well, is it yes or no?

Why can't you answer the question?

[madrchsod]

6. only rich kids did community

service back then and it would had to be a serious offence to warrent cs. those records are gone but there is still something there

[distortionmarshall]

7. yesterday?

um, wasn't that exchange like a week ago?

awesome for taking the blinders off, with regards to the nature of the administration tho....

[rvgwinn]

16. McClellan

One would think this exchange would get top billing on the nightly newes. The majority of the hard working public never sees or hears of this naked stupidity.

[tom_paine]

8. Yes.

n/t

[TrogL]

9. Wow, I haven't seen tapdancing like that in ages

• changes the topic
  
• attacks the questioner
  
• calls it politics
  
• calls it old history
  
• calls it "rumours"
  

I take it there's something wrong with "no" that makes it even worse than "yes".

[Brian Sweat]

11. I'd be willing to be real money that it is.

I'm also guessing that Terry McAuliffe has gotten wind of something to the effect that Shrub's DD214 is proof of this.

[DemBones DemBones]

12. Helen Thomas asked those questions LAST FRIDAY.

Josh Marshall (www.talkingpointsmemo.com) posted that lengthy exchange between Thomas and Scott McClellan the same day, but it's from the "gaggle," the untelevised press briefing. Only the transcripts of televised press briefings are posted at the White House site. At the televised live briefing later that day, Helen Thomas was never called on.

Later that afternoon, the White House released George W. Bush's National Guard records, too late for reporters to do more than a brief review for the evning news. But have they talked about it this week? Have I just missed all the serious discussion of the gaps in Dubya's record? Has Sam Donaldson predicted Bush's resignation yet?

[nostamj]

13. uh, she also asked it in Thursday's TELEVISED

press conference.

Snotty refused to hear, much less answer the question.

But Helen certainly did bring up 'community service' (haven't checked the WH transcript but wouldn't put it past them to experience a transcript 'malfunction'....

[proud patriot]

23. He asked her why she was asking the question

over and over ...

It was insulting , I hope all those reporters
saw the desperation in scott...

[starroute]

14. A rough timeline of all this is starting to emerge

It's becoming clear that something significant happened before May of 1972. It may have been a cocaine arrest, it may have been Bush crashing a plane because of being high or drunk, but whatever it was, it had to have been before he went off to Alabama. Up until May, his files are complete and his reports highly positive. From May on, holes and unexplained events start to appear.

If the January 1973 work with PULL in Houston was community service, it has to have been for something Bush did while he was in Texas -- which again points back to the period just prior to May of 1972 (because he was in Alabama most of the time from May to December.)

It this line of speculation is correct, it means that the refusal to take the physical in the summer of 1972 was probably not the precipitating event, because Bush would have been in trouble well before then. Perhaps he had already been grounded and therefore saw no point in trying to maintain his flight status, or perhaps he was afraid it would reveal he was continuing to use cocaine after promising a court he had stopped.

But the spring of 1972 has to be the crucial period.

[PaDUer]

15. Ooppsss...

http://www.essays.cc/free_essays/f1/lmy109.shtml

During his stay at Yale Bush had two encounters with the law including drunkenness and misdemeanor theft.

[PaDUer]

17. kick n/t

[RowWellandLive]

24. No one cares

except us of course!

Seriously, let's address the current and pressing issues. Unless we can prove Bush has done drugs recently it won't hurt him. All the major politicians are hypocrites on the drug issue anyway. Kerry admits to smoking pot but at last check is against decriminalization. We have the economy, job losses, no WMD's, body bags, etc. Best to stick to that.

[starroute]

25. Yes, it can and will hurt him

But it's not because of the possible drug use.

It's because Bush has been strutting around in a flight suit, playing the Commander in Chief for all he's worth. If he ducked out on his National Guard service and got an honorable discharge only through family pull, that shows him up as a phony.

It's because his records were apparently scrubbed as recently as 1997, when Bush was first contemplating running for president.

It's because Vietnam is still a very live issue, and Vietnam veterans are not disposed to think well of someone who first got a safe berth due to family connections and they blew off even that relatively easy service as though it was of no significance.

Disrespect for the military, claiming honors that are not his, and recent attempts at a coverup are all character issues. And "character" has been and will continue to be the centerpiece of Bush's campaign (since he certainly can't run on the basis of his policies.) This is where he's most vulnerable, and this is where he can be hit hardest.