BUSH CODE WON'T DO

George W. Bush is trying to strike a bargain with the American public
on the question of whether he ever used cocaine or other illegal
drugs. He won't deny it but, so far at least, won't explicitly admit
it, either. Instead he lapses into code: He could have passed an FBI
background check for a government job at the outset of his father's
presidency in 1989, he says.

By that he turns out to mean that he could have said "no" as of 1989
to the question: Have you used drugs in the past 15 years? You are
free to translate that to mean that (a) he did use cocaine and/or
other illegal drugs prior to 1974, when he would have been 28 years
old, and (b) he has not used them since. Whatever happened, it
happened long ago, and he could be counted upon not to do it again AC
that was the message.

He says that is all he will have to say on the matter. He contends
that his coded remarks let the people know all they need to know about
the subject, while preserving a degree of privacy and dignity to which
even public figures are entitled. If it costs him not to say more, he
says he would rather pay that price than the alternative. The position
wins him some sympathy.

As with so much else in contemporary politics, it was Bill Clinton who
perfected defensive code-speak. Asked in 1992 about evidence of
infidelity, he acknowledged on national television, wife dutifully at
his side, that he had caused "pain in his marriage." Asked later to
elaborate, he said he thought that the American people understood what
he meant, and that he had said enough.

We do not seek by this to imply an equivalency, in either direction,
between the behavior of the two men. Mr. Clinton did not just resort
to code in that television interview. He said some other things that
later turned out to be just plain untrue, having to do with his
relationship with Gennifer Flowers, for example. And of course he
famously failed to adhere to his implied promise not to do it again,
then lied outright when caught, in a way that nearly cost him the
presidency. Part of the price of his behavior was a poisoning of the
well of public trust. It is more than ironic that Mr. Bush should now
be among the sufferers from that.

Mr. Bush will likely have to say more - he owes at least an explicit
acknowledgment of whatever it is that he now seeks to acknowledge only
obliquely, and some kind of statement relating the bye that he would
seem to be seeking for himself to the stern position he now takes as a
public official toward drug offenders.

He is right that, wherever he tries to draw the line, the press will
pound for more, as is its function. Veiled acknowledgments might be
enough if they could be counted upon to be accurate characterizations
of the conduct they skip past. Too often they have turned out not to
be. The public may well be weary of scandal after the past few years,
but it has good cause, on the strength of those same years, to be more
wary than ever of being lied to

Mr. Bush is right that public figures are entitled to a measure of
privacy. But the public also is entitled to at least enough of the
truth about public figures to be able to judge them.