Convicted of Drunk Driving, and Lied to Cover It Up
George Bush now admits that he was convicted of drunk driving. On September 4, 1976, a state trooper saw Bush’s car swerve onto the shoulder, then back onto the road. [The Bush camp spin that he was driving too slowly is simply a lie.] Bush failed a road sobriety test and blew a .10 blood alcohol, plead guilty, and was fined and had his driver’s license suspended. His spokesman says that he had drunk “several beers” at a local bar before the arrest. Bush was 30 at the time. He now says that he stopped drinking when he turned 40 because it was a problem.
More troubling, Bush lied in denying such an arrest, and still won’t take responsibility for his actions. His first reaction was to blame Democrats and Fox News – the only openly conservative TV network – for reporting the story. “Why [was this reported] now, four days before the election? I’ve got my suspicions.” He refused to say what his suspicions are, though. Bush admits covering up the story, but seems to think he has no responsibility for the failure of his cover up.
In fact, just like Clinton with Monica Lewinsky, Bush has brazenly and repeatedly lied to cover up and minimize this arrest.
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Bush Lied at his Press Conference, 11/3/2000
Bush said he paid a fine on the spot and never went to court. That is clearly a lie, as you can see on this court document showing his court hearing a month later. In fact, it was a man also in court for DUI the same day who revealed Bush’ arrest. Here is exactly what Bush said in his press conference:
Bush: “I told the guy I had been drinking and what do I need to do? And he said, “Here’s the fine.” I paid the fine and did my duty…”
Reporter: "Governor, was there any legal proceeding of any kind? Or did you just – "
Bush: “No. I pled – you know, I said I was wrong and I …” Reporter: "In court? "
Bush: No, there was no court. I went to the police station. I said, “I’m wrong.”
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Bush Lied in Court, 1978
Bush got a court hearing to get his driving suspension lifted early, even though he had not completed a required driver rehabilitation course. He told the hearings officer that he drank only once a month, and just had “an occasional beer.” The officer granted his request. But Bush continued drinking for 8 years after that date and has said publicly that he drank too much and had a drinking problem during that time. Presumably Bush was under oath during the hearing, though we haven’t been able to pin down that detail. The Bush campaign refuses to comment on this contradiction.
3. Bush Lied To “The Dallas Morning News”, 1998
“Just after the governor’s reelection in 1998, [Dallas Morning News reporter Wayne] Slater pressed Bush about whether he had ever been arrested. 'He said, ‘After 1968? No.’” Dallas Morning News, 11/03/2000 [Before 1968, Bush was arrested for theft and vandalism in college.]
- Bush Lied to CBS, 1999.
“Bush has often acknowledged past mistakes, but CBS News Correspondent Lee Cowan reports that in a 1999 interview with CBS station WBZ in Boston, he denied there was any so-called smoking gun.” CBS TV news
Bush also evaded countless questions and gave Clintonesque half-truths. For example, while struggling with how to answer charges of drug abuse, he said that he would have been able to pass FBI background checks during his father’s administration. But those checks include the question “Have you ever been arrested for any crime?” So either he was directly lying, or he has some Slick explanation like “I could have explained the circumstances of the arrest and still passed the FBI check.”
Bush had several other drunken incidents, as well. In December, 1972, Bush challenged his dad (the ex-president) to a fist fight, during an argument about Bush’s drunk driving. He had taken his little brother out drinking, and ran over a neighbor’s garbage cans on the way home. Bush’s atypical public service job, working with inner city Houston kids, appears to have been an unofficial community service stint set up by Bush, Sr. Apparently the governor didn’t learn his lesson, because his drunk driving conviction occured almost four years later.
In another incident, he started screaming obscenities at a Wall Street Journal reporter, just because that reporter predicted that Bush’s father would not be the 1988 Republican nominee. The reporter obviously was wrong, but a drunken Bush Jr. walked up to him at a restaurant and started yelling “You fucking son of a bitch. I won’t forget what you said and you’re going to pay a price for it.”
In fact, Bush’ running mate Dick Cheney now admits he had two drunk driving offenses in 1962 and 1963, giving the Bush – Cheney ticket a new world record of 3 DUI’s on one ticket. No wonder they seem so relaxed.
The conviction is bad enough, but the real question is, what other revelations are going to come later, about his drug use (which he won’t deny), failing to show up for a year of his National Guard service, or sexual escapades in his swinging single days?
There is evidence that Bush has more to hide involving his Texas driving record. Soon after he became governor, he had a new driver’s license issued with the unusual ID number of “000000005”, an action that destroyed the records of his previous license. His staff could only say, weakly, that this was done for “security reasons” but there is no record of any previous Texas governor having done so. Now we have at least of hint of why Bush wanted his records obscured, and a dark foreboding that more might be lurking, still covered up.
COCAINE:
According to a new book, three independent sources close to the Bush family report that Governor Bush was arrested in 1972 for cocaine possession, and taken to Harris County Jail, but avoided jail or formal charges through an informal diversion plan involving community service with Project P.U.L.L., an inner city Houston program for troubled youths at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in Houston’s dirt-poor Third Ward. (In another new book, reporter Bill Minutaglio, writes that the year of community service was arranged by the Governor’s father, ex-president Bush, after he caught Bush Jr. driving drunk.)
Bush has essentially admitted that he used cocaine in his Clintonesque, carefully worded partial denials. He won’t deny using cocaine or marijuana, though under persistent questioning he said that he hadn’t used cocaine in the last 7 years. Most newspapers report that he denies using cocaine since 1974, but that’s not exactly true.
When pressed on the hypocrisy issue, he speaks to hypocritical baby boomer parents everywhere: “If I were you, I wouldn’t tell your kids that you smoked pot unless you want 'em to smoke pot. I think it’s important for leaders, and parents, not to send mixed signals. I don’t want some kid saying, ‘Well, Governor Bush tried it.’”
It’s amazing enough that he openly defends hypocrisy, but his own signals are very mixed. When allowed to imply that he is just another manly, hard-drinking rapscallion, Bush seizes the opportunity. “When I was young and irresponsible, I was really young and irresponsible,” he often says. He even hints at pot smoking, as in the above quote, and why not? Everyone from his likely opponent Al Gore to Newt Gingrich has admitted smoking pot.
But Junior wants it both ways. When the deadly rumor of cocaine use surfaces, he retreats to his high-minded rhetoric about not giving mixed messages.
As governor of Texas, George W. Bush, Jr. supported and signed legislation increasing penalties for drug possession in that state. In one instance, Governor Bush signed legislation mandating jail time for people caught with less than a single gram of cocaine. As a candidate, Bush’s handling of the cocaine question offers clues as to how he deals with embarrassing mistakes – admit them and move on, or obfuscate and side-step. As President, Governor Bush would preside over a national drug policy that is increasingly punitive, the driving force behind the nation’s ascendancy to the title of world’s most prolific incarcerator.
In 1992, Republicans asked whether Democratic candidate Bill Clinton could summon the moral authority to send young people to war, given the fact that he had successfully avoided military service during his youth. Today, Governor Bush must be asked whether he can summon the moral authority to send young people to prison, given the fact that he had avoided the DEA in his youth.
It is becoming increasingly clear that George Junior most likely did toot a line or two back in his halcyon days. The relevant question, then, is whether or not he believes that five or ten years in prison would have been the appropriate societal response to that use. And if not, why he believes that such treatment is appropriate for the children of fathers who were not Ambassadors to China, Directors of the CIA, Vice Presidents or Commanders-in-Chief.
The truth is that George Junior was never in much danger of being treated like less fortunate Americans who get sucked into our runaway criminal justice system. As the rich son of a powerful man, it is unlikely that he would have been pulled over, searched, or busted in a street sweep. Rich people don’t buy their coke on the street, in quarter gram increments. And if by some strange confluence of events he had been caught and arrested – rather than sent on his way with a wave of his ID – he would have certainly had an expensive attorney, and a spot waiting for him at the Betty Ford Clinic. The judge would likely have wished him well in his recovery. It would’ve taken an act of God or else an act of monumental stupidity on his own part for George Junior to have ever seen the inside of an American prison for drug possession.
BUSH ‘TOOK COCAINE AT CAMP DAVID’
And wife Laura liked dope, says book
By Emma Pryer
GEORGE W Bush snorted cocaine at Camp David, a new book claims.
His wife Laura also allegedly tried cannabis in her youth.
Author Kitty Kelley says in her biography The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty, that the US President first used coke at university in the mid-1960s.
She quotes his former sister-in-law Sharon Bush who claims: “Bush did coke at Camp David when his father was President, and not just once either.”
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Other acquaintances allege that as a 26-year-old National Guard, Bush “liked to sneak out back for a joint or into the bathroom for a line of cocaine”.
Bush has admitted being an alcoholic but, asked during the 1999 election if he did drugs, he said: "I’ve told the American people that years ago I made some mistakes.