STRAIGHT ANSWERS BEGET FORGIVENESS

Everyone knew that one presidential candidate was going to have to
work like a Mississippi mule to distance himself from President Clinton.

Who knew that it would be George W. Bush?

The Texas governor's tortured handling of the "Cocaine Question" is
eerily similar to Clinton's 1992 stumble on the "Sex Question."

Bill Clinton's slickly ambiguous admission on 60 Minutes that he had
"caused pain" in his marriage saved his candidacy. Of course, it
didn't hurt that adultery isn't illegal and that Hillary Clinton sat
dutifully by her husband that evening to underscore the message.

How might history have been different if we knew then what we know now
about Bill Clinton's reckless sexual appetite?

George W. Bush's ready-made answer to questions about rumors that he
has used cocaine is equally slick.

"When I was young and irresponsible, I acted young and irresponsibly,"
he said.

It worked for a while. Until the press -- the same press that anointed
Bush as unbeatable in June for the 2000 Republican presidential
nomination -- insisted on details.

These days, acting young and irresponsibly can land a 17-year-old in
an adult prison for 20 years.

Marijuana is one thing, but politicians who dismiss cocaine use with a
wink and a nod do so at their own peril.

Cocaine is different. Who says so?

The United States government.

It has been that way since the 1980s. It was the crack-cocaine crisis
that led to tougher drug laws and landed many users in prisons. And
who makes up the largest percentage of these new criminals? Many of
them are poor, inner-city kids who could suddenly afford the cheaper
crack. Aren't these the same people Bush hopes to help with his brand
of compassionate conservatism?

Republican candidates such as Elizabeth Dole and Steve Forbes already
have criticized Clinton for being a wimp on the war on drugs. His "I
didn't inhale" remark is still used as a shot line by Republicans in
Congress when pointing out that Clinton lacks the moral authority to
wage the war on drugs. Does George W. Bush?

That's not an unreasonable question, given that the United States
spends billions of dollars each year combating illegal drug use.

The issue takes on a different perspective in Florida, where drug use
remains a crisis. Orlando, for example, is among the nation's leaders
in heroin overdoses. Twenty years from now, will voters accept a
presidential candidate who refuses to say whether she stuck a needle
into her arm?

There is no evidence that Bush ever used cocaine. The mistake is how
he answered the question. A straight-forward, honest admission or
denial would have served him much better than this ham-handed attempt
to blame intrusive news media for exceeding their bounds.

Bush and his supporters have tried to turn the question into an
indictment of "gotcha" politics.

Does that argument pass the straight-face test?

Many of these same people deploring the press in the post-Lewinsky era
are the ones who helped create the Lewinsky era in the first place.
The same political party that spent much of the past year making an
issue of a consensual -- and legal -- sexual affair is calling for
restraint and a respect for a candidate's privacy.

Bush's latest answer to the question about substance abuse is that he
has not used illegal drugs in the past 25 years.

Under normal circumstances, that should be enough to calm the concerns
of reasonable people.

But reason has flown out the window. It left when sex led to
impeachment. It won't return until politicians and the press realize
that Americans will forgive almost anything if they believe that they
are being given the straight story.