Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

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Tape Worm

Rich Galen

Monday February 21, 2005

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Doug Wead is a worm. A tape worm.

He secretly taped conversations with George W. Bush, used pieces of those conversations in a book and has released at least some of those tapes to the news media in the promotion of that book.

Although I'm certain he wouldn't know me if he ran me over with his car, I met Wead during my days as the spokesman for the Fund for America's Future which was then-Vice President George H. W. Bush's political action committee.

Wead did outreach to the evangelical community on behalf of the Veep. He was around a good deal as was the eldest son of the Vice President, the managing partner of the Texas Rangers baseball team, George W.

Wead and W. spent a good deal of time together during those days and, according to these tapes, remained in contact as W. went from baseball executive to the chief executive of the State of Texas and during the 2000 campaign for the Presidency.

The bad news is that someone that Bush trusted. taped their private conversations and has decided to trade on those tapes.

The good news is, despite a 3,400 word front page article in yesterday's NY Times, there's no new news.

The pre-Presidential George W. was not much different from the man we see today. In fact, reporter David Kirkpatrick writes, "The private Mr. Bush sounds remarkably similar in many ways to the public President Bush."

The big non-news is the section on drug use. Kirkpatrick writes:

Mr. Bush, who has acknowledged a drinking problem years ago, told Mr. Wead on the tapes that he could withstand scrutiny of his past. He said it involved nothing more than "just, you know, wild behavior." He worried, though, that allegations of cocaine use would surface in the campaign, and he blamed his opponents for stirring rumors. "If nobody shows up, there's no story," he told Mr. Wead, "and if somebody shows up, it is going to be made up." But when Mr. Wead said that Mr. Bush had in the past publicly denied using cocaine, Mr. Bush replied, "I haven't denied anything."

Which is entirely consistent with the position the Bush campaign held throughout the 2000 campaign.

Every news organization on the planet had teams out looking for anyone, anywhere who would say that at any time Bush had used cocaine.

No one ever did.

But the campaign made the strategic decision not to discuss drug use because denying he had ever used cocaine would naturally lead to a question of whether he was ever in a place where cocaine was used; or whether he knew anyone who had ever used cocaine; or if anyone had ever offered him cocaine and if so where and when, and so on.

Again from the Kirkpatrick piece:

Defending his approach, Mr. Bush said: "I wouldn't answer the marijuana questions. You know why? Because I don't want some little kid doing what I tried."

When this was hot news during the 2000 campaign, I was on David Gregory's MSNBC program before he became NBC's White House correspondent. As I remember the episode I was on with Newsweek's Jonathan Alter.

Gregory asked why Governor Bush wouldn't discuss these issues - even if he had used marijuana - wouldn't people think more of him for coming clean?

I suggested that it might be not a campaign issue, but an issue with his daughters. I said that if your kid or kids think you're pretty cool and you tell them you used marijuana when you were young it is more than a little likely that they'll say "He used it, and he turned out pretty well, it must be ok."

Gregory was single at the time and didn't believe me. Alter said he agreed wholeheartedly and suggested we renew this conversation when Gregory had children of his own. David does have a child now and it would, in fact, be interesting revisit the issue.

The saddest point in the entire article is the final paragraph:

Why disclose the tapes? "I just felt that the historical point I was making trumped a personal relationship," Mr. Wead said. Asked about consequences, Mr. Wead said, "I'll always be friendly toward him."

With friends like that �

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A link to the New York Times article (registration required); a pretty good license plate Mullfoto and a Catchy Caption of the Day which will thrill PETA.

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