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Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot

By Jeralyn, Section Other Politics
Posted on Sat Feb 19, 2005 at 07:58:44 PM EST
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Doug Wead, an author who was an aide to the former President Bush, has released secretly recorded tapes of his conversations with GW Bush when GW was Governor of Texas and contemplating a run for the White House.

Memorable moments: Bush indicates he smoked pot and says he won't answer questions about his drug usage, and, Bush thought John Ashcroft should either be a Supreme Court Justice or his Vice-Presidential candidate.

He refused to answer reporters' questions about his past behavior, he said, even though it might cost him the election. 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."

"I want Ashcroft to stay in there, and I want him to be very strong," Mr. Bush said. " I would love it to be a Bush-Ashcroft race. Only because I respect him. He wouldn't say ugly things about me. And I damn sure wouldn't say ugly things about him."

Update: Don't miss Roger Ailes (not that one) Wead Smokes Bush. [Via Memeorandum]

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    • Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot | 36 comments (36 topical)
    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Feb 19, 2005 at 08:14:54 PM EST
    Interesting timing on this due to Gannongate. It seems like a news dump to change the focus.

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Feb 19, 2005 at 08:25:29 PM EST
    Ok, let me get this straight. A guy named Weed says Dubya smoked pot. And a gay male prostitute has been whoring as a news reporter for the White House. Hmmm.

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#3)
    by glanton on Sat Feb 19, 2005 at 08:29:38 PM EST
    Who cares if Dubya smoked pot? As far as I'm concerned more of them need to try it; maybe if he still toked on occasion he'd be a little less hell bent, dogmatic, my way or the highway kind of guy. Geez. So this and Gannon and Churchill is the kind of stuff dominating the newswires these days. The _National Enquirer_ is no longer beneath the AP. I suppose we can forget about this government ever feeling compelled to do something to improve the actual lives of citizens.

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Feb 19, 2005 at 08:37:35 PM EST
    This is nothing a 12 step program won't cure...

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Feb 19, 2005 at 09:12:38 PM EST
    I wished he still toked too, he could use some mellowing out. Maybe he should get the lump to blow him every once in a while, might save some lives.

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Feb 19, 2005 at 11:01:50 PM EST
    Bush is doing an illegal middle-age war in the name of "God", killing civilians, torturing prisonners, and threatening the stability of the world. Who cares he is an alcoholic or he smokes pot? The real question is when shall he nuke the world?

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#7)
    by Patrick on Sat Feb 19, 2005 at 11:31:43 PM EST
    There was a lot more info on the tapes than that....Why only this?

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Feb 19, 2005 at 11:39:54 PM EST
    AND!? in his case, too bad you can't OD off the stuff.

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#9)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Feb 20, 2005 at 06:20:07 AM EST
    I am shocked. Yes shocked to discover that Bush smoked some dope as a young man in the late 60's and 70's.

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#10)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Feb 20, 2005 at 06:28:01 AM EST
    If this is true, we finally have unequivocable proof that Bush is actually a smarter man than Bill Clinton, for he at least understands how to smoke a joint.

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#11)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Feb 20, 2005 at 07:09:19 AM EST
    Coke...people always forget the cocaine.

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#12)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Feb 20, 2005 at 07:10:53 AM EST
    Who hasn't smoked pot???

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#13)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Feb 20, 2005 at 08:49:15 AM EST
    Why do people use drugs? I didn't understand it 40 yreas ago and still do not get it, the fact is people are politically programed to use drugs by the system, so why do people do it? its insane, but normal for a world of fools, and it makes the evil power Rats happy as hell. Fight back don't do drugs be a human being and remove the Rats from earth by any means you can, real freedom is to think and act against evil little power people who want kids and you in a prison cell.

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#14)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Feb 20, 2005 at 09:17:43 AM EST
    A) He indicated he never did coke. "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." B) He approaches the issue with class. Clinton and Gore approached in the sense that if they insinuate or admit they tried it, it will endear potential younger voters to them. Bush, instead of admitting to trying them and possibly encouraging a kid to try them, he simply tells kids not to try them. He seems more like a thoughtful, responsible adult. And one more thing that is refreshing. " The private Mr. Bush sounds remarkably similar in many ways to the public President Bush. " I bet you can't say that about too many other politions.

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#15)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Feb 20, 2005 at 09:21:04 AM EST
    "politicians"

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#16)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Feb 20, 2005 at 09:27:41 AM EST
    Captain Toke, you left something out: "I never denied anything."

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#17)
    by Che's Lounge on Sun Feb 20, 2005 at 10:06:26 AM EST
    Bush smoking pot gives pot a bad rep.

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#18)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Feb 20, 2005 at 10:23:42 AM EST
    Doug Wead is a very significant figure in Republican politics. He served as an advisor to both Bush Senior and Junior. He was the coauthor of James Watt's (remember him) book "Courage of a Conservative" and was paid $75,000 to write a book entitled "Amatomy of a Smear" for televangelest Jim Bakker(which was never published). He has close ties with the Amway organization and is a frequent speaker at Amway events. He is a divorced former Pentacostal minister and is reputed to be (or was) a bridge to the evangelistic subculture for the administration. Why has he released these tapes at this time and what does it mean? There is it seems to me a lot more to this story. Phillip Sherwoood

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#19)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Feb 20, 2005 at 10:46:28 AM EST
    Captain Toke, you left something out: "I never denied anything." "He refused to answer reporters' questions about his past behavior, he said, even though it might cost him the election. 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." That better? Jerk.

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#20)
    by Dadler on Sun Feb 20, 2005 at 10:54:39 AM EST
    bush has no problem talking about his alcoholism, because alcohol is america's national drug -- it's patriotic to be a drunk. the coke he did will never get air time because he's not man enough to admit it -- and it'd make him seem to weird. drunks are normal, potheads are liberal scum, and cokeheads are funding terrorism. that's his party's line and he will stick to it. little men with tiny dicks and fat wallets. bush is one of many in a long line of hypocrites.

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#21)
    by Johnny on Sun Feb 20, 2005 at 11:04:21 AM EST
    I know this has been hashed and rehashed, but where in he** does Bush get off on his policies towards youth who break laws? What a hypocritical a$$. Toke it up Mr. President. By the way, is a UA mandatory for representative service in the USA? Maybe it should be. 8 dollar an hour foodservice workers have to have their privacy invaded, why not our politicos? How about it?

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#22)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Feb 20, 2005 at 02:36:32 PM EST
    Guys, it is a planted story to distract attention from Gannon. The main thrust of the NYTIMES story was that Bush stood up to evangelicals and refused to "bash" gays. It is misdirection, pure and simple. Election is over, pot doesn't matter. Rove planted this story.

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#23)
    by Adept Havelock on Sun Feb 20, 2005 at 03:12:09 PM EST
    Pot? Really? Gee. I would have figured a history of LSD, Mushrooms, Peyote and such would be more likely, considering his thought and speech processes and their lack of grounding in reality. :)

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#24)
    by jeaubleau on Sun Feb 20, 2005 at 07:38:16 PM EST
    Bush smoking pot? That's impossible. Marijuana is a dangerous category one substance which has no medicinal value. If Bush had smoked it, he would be a disease-ridden, poverty-stricken, unemployable hippie. Instead he is the POTUS. Either Bush did not smoke it, or we have been lied to, and are wasting a lot of money on this war-on-drugs for nothing.

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#25)
    by scarshapedstar on Sun Feb 20, 2005 at 10:15:57 PM EST
    Ashcroft for VP! Gosh, we should have given Dubya more free reign!

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#26)
    by Che's Lounge on Mon Feb 21, 2005 at 12:06:32 AM EST
    It's OK if you only "tried" it.

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#27)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Feb 21, 2005 at 06:32:38 AM EST
    Hypocrisy (lying to your kids about smoking pot to supposedly "protect" them or inculcate approved "values") has been the approved WoD/ONDCP talking point to parents for about a decade. Czar McCaffry cooked up "marijuana" as drug public enemy #1 and the huge anti-drug advertising campaign in 1997, within days of the California medical marijuana initiative. Drug war hardcore ideologues look at marijuana as a illegal drug "Maginot Line", believing in the "gateway theory" and that if kids smoke pot, they'll move on to heroin, meth, coke and ecstacy in short order. They also believe that medical marijuana is entirely a plot of legalizers to start with a wedge issue which will roll back the entire WoD (paranoid interpretation with more than a grain of truth). If you notice the ONDCP ad campaigns of recent years, most of the talking points they sell parents expressly counsel parents to lie about their drug use supposedly to encourage abstinence and "protect" their kids. It's kind of an Orwellian take on your personal history: parents are encouraged to think of the '60s and '70s as some debauched decades where "we know better now how harmful drug use is". That's where the silly ancillary myths come in: "not your father's marijuana", the pot that's supposedly orders of magnitude stronger than "what we smoked". I've seen a lot of ONDCP print ads and their radio ads (NPR's, "All Things Considered") that harp on the need to "talk to" your pre-teen kids, monitor their friends and activities and encourage organized sports busy-ness or some other kind of "anti-drug". There's a very strong message for parents who weren't abstinent in their youth **not** to fess up, but rather to steel themselves to lie "for the good of the children". There is definitely some kind of moral gloss here that "for the greater good", lying is the right thing to do. But the fact that these ideologues lie to themselves, their kids and others and confuse magical and wishful thinking with reality is nothing new, is it? Another noteworthy part of the story is despite Bush's piety about lying to kids to protect them (or protect the fatherly image) is Bush's snickering about his opponent Gore's decision to divulge the truth. Bush clearly thinks his expedient hypocrisy is clever and puts him at a political advantage, while Gore's honesty is similarly naive, foolish and weak.

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#28)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Feb 21, 2005 at 07:15:13 AM EST
    dadler - Can you provide us a link about Bush doing coke that is credibile? I really don't care either way, but charges should have some back up. jackl - The real issue isn't about whether or not pot is harmful or who did what 30 years ago. The real is, like it or not, pot is illegal, and if caught with it, the kid is in for some really big time trouble, not to mention the strain on the family's resources and relationships because of that. Given that, a parent should do everything possible to keep their children away from it.

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#29)
    by jeaubleau on Mon Feb 21, 2005 at 08:08:02 AM EST
    Preferably my child will do no drugs, but I would rather my child smoke half a joint, than drink half a bottle of whiskey. Have you ever heard of someone smoking a joint and then starting a fight, or abusing another person, or raping a person, or shooting someone in an argument, or killing someone with their car? Happens with alcohol every day. Not just most days, but EVERY day. Of course, pot smokers do have that anoying habit of giggling and eating too much junk food. I guess we spend millions of dollars each year on incarcerations and WoD to keep down all the giggling. It's obviously worth it. Let them drink booze instead.

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#30)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Feb 21, 2005 at 08:11:26 AM EST
    But when Mr. Wead said that Mr. Bush had in the past publicly denied using cocaine, Mr. Bush replied, "I haven't denied anything." Why am I a jerk for quoting this?

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#31)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Feb 21, 2005 at 08:52:56 AM EST
    Now I understand Bush, he is a head, and one big head at that. but some would say a real religious guy doing gods work here on old mother earth, maybe he needs a boy to? what don't we know about bush? oh yes while you are watching the war and dead us troops, our boys in the russia just made a deal with some politically interesting guys over oil, about a trillion billion bucks of oil and do you know what family will stand to make over 500 billion a year? on this deal of a life time was helped by who? look it up. Yes Bush is a great guy but for who?

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#32)
    by Jlvngstn on Mon Feb 21, 2005 at 09:00:41 AM EST
    It is a puff piece that should not be given any press unless there is a full release of all the tapes. I also note that they pull out only flattering stuff (including the pot reference).

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#33)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Feb 21, 2005 at 09:52:20 AM EST
    Dearest No Name - Why not do the entire statemen? "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." There now, everyone should he happy.

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#34)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Feb 21, 2005 at 10:29:12 AM EST
    Dearest No Name - Why not do the entire statemen? "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." There now, everyone should he happy. So why would anyone think that A) He indicated he never did coke based on that?

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#35)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Feb 21, 2005 at 11:09:10 PM EST
    This is just another cleverly orchastrated release in order for the common man, and youth of america to see the republican party and the bushies as good guys and not the fascists they truely are, mind control is real and america is a puppet on their twelve step program, to tak eover the world.

    Re: Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot (none / 0) (#36)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Feb 23, 2005 at 08:50:10 PM EST
    does anybody really believe Rove & co. didn't approve the release of these tapes beforehand? after the made-good threats to anyone not playing the good, loyal soldier in this admin, are you seriously believing that they didn't bless this entire thing?

    Bush Tapes Indicate He Smoked Pot | 36 comments (36 topical)