PRIVATE FOR HIM? PRIVATE FOR US ALL

August 24 - In a sensible polity, we would be counting our blessings that
this is not a presidential election year. But in this Republic, pundits are
already handicapping the 2000 race while the media insist that we care about
what happened when a bunch of Iowa Republicans got together a while ago.

One side effect of all this attention has been the questions about whether
Texas Gov. George Walker Bush, the presumptive Republican candidate, has
ever used cocaine.

At first, I rather respected Bush's standard answer: "When I was young and
foolish, I was young and foolish.'' The media questions persisted, rephrased
and reiterated. Now we have been told that he could have passed an FBI White
House security-clearance check at any time since 1974, whatever that means.

What to make of all this?

My initial theory was that it was merely a media contrivance to inject some
controversy into an exceedingly tedious non-event. What's the point of being
a big-time journalist who travels with the leading candidate for the most
powerful secular office on earth, if there's no story and thus no front-page
byline nor evening-news lead-in nor invitation to appear on a Sunday morning
talk show which leads to extravagant lecture fees from people who will pay
vast sums for the privilege of breathing the same air as a celebrity?

And if there's nothing except the usual blather about "compassionate
conservatism,'' then start asking questions until the candidate either
contradicts something he said earlier, talks about something new, or erupts
in anger.

This kind of behavior goes a long way toward explaining why millions of
Americans despise and distrust "the media,'' and I was working up a
righteous anger myself.

ED QUILLEN After all, it's none of my business what, if any, botanic
by-products that someone may have sampled. So why do such questions and
responses constitute "news''? Granted, it's August and the peak of the silly
season, but still, can't they find any UFO abductions, self-proclaimed Saudi
princesses or Elvis sightings?

However, candidates for almost every political office in this country, from
local school board to the presidency, generally claim that such matters are
their business, that the presence of certain organic compounds in your
bloodstream or mine is a matter of vital social concern.

Only the Libertarians and the infrequent but sensible maverick say
otherwise. The rest all call for more testing, more screening, more
clandestine military action in Latin America, bigger prisons, longer
sentences, more noknock raids, more searches, more civil asset forfeiture -
in general, ever more vigorous pursuit of the War on Drugs.

Bush has never criticized this war, except perhaps to insist that it be
prosecuted more fervently, and as governor of Texas, he signed a bill that
would send people to prison for possession of less than a gram of cocaine.

And so, even if you or I or millions of Americans may believe that his past
relationship with cocaine is a private matter, he obviously doesn't.

If he truly thought it was a private matter, he'd have vetoed that law while
dismantling the enforcement machinery of the state of Texas and ordering

Texas Rangers to protect the privacy of Lone Star citizens from any federal
incursions upon their civil rights and liberties.

That hasn't happened. He's stuck between a rock and hard place. If it's a
"private matter'' for him, then why isn't a private matter for the Texans
whom he now send to prison as that state's chief law-enforcement officer?

Since it's not a private matter for anyone who marshals public resources to
delve into citizens' blood chemistry, then the public deserves an explanation.

The explanation might go into some detail as to how he managed to escape

the cocaine culture of the 1970s and become a productive citizen without

going to prison, which is the recovery site now supported by most
officeholders of either major party. If chain-gang servitude and anal rape
are good therapy now, how did he manage without such intervention?

He might also talk about how, even if the reporters are obnoxious with their
questions, they aren't half as horrible as being confronted by an armed DEA
investigator who will threaten to seize his home, car and bank account
unless he can provide some names of people who might have bought, sold or
provided a controlled substance.

There's more he could say, of course, but the odds are that he's just hoping
this will go away.

I hope so, too. What about a truce. We citizens won't ask politicians what
substances they may or may not have ingested, and in return, they (and their
agents if they gain office) won't ask us citizens. Doesn't that sound
sensible and fair all the way around?