WHEN AN OLD DRUG QUESTION BECOMES NEW NEWS

Gov. George W. Bush's refusal to give a yes or no answer when asked if
he had used cocaine had been old news since his first campaign for
governor of Texas in 1994. Then, he rebuffed the question with the
words: "What I did as a kid? I don't think it's relevant."

There the question and answer stood, basically unchanged, as the
Governor rose to national political prominence. He gave the same
answer to the New Hampshire station WMUR-TV in February, and to The
Washington Post last month. In the meantime, droves of reporters came
through Texas and asked questions; to date, none has reported evidence
of cocaine use. But in the last three weeks, the alchemy of repetition
made the old question new news in some news outlets. On Wednesday and
Thursday, Bush made it even newer news by changing his answer. The
process highlighted the changed dynamics of political reporting in
this Presidential campaign, which is being brought to voters by more
news and entertainment outlets than ever before. It also reveals rifts
among journalists as they decide what is appropriate to ask, and what
is appropriate to publish. A question about possible prior cocaine use
"is a fair question to ask," said Richard A. Oppel, the editor of The
Austin American-Statesman, in a telephone interview. "But it's also
worth asking, 'How many times can you ask the same question without
becoming a major part of the story?' " Oppel added: "We should not be
part of the story. Where there's a clear fox hunt going on, it raises
questions about fairness and the credibility of the press."

John F. Stacks, an executive editor of Time magazine, framed the
question differently in an essay in this week's issue of the magazine.
"It's not hard to comprehend a national disinclination, post-Monica,
to paw over the dark moments of yet another politician's life. The
problem is that using cocaine, unlike having a bit of sport with the
ladies, is illegal, and the country has decided to dole out harsh
prison sentences to many people caught with the drug."

And, Stacks wrote, "The rationale for probing has only grown easier in
this post-ideological period, since so many politicians are
essentially saying 'Elect me because I'm the better person.' Is there
not then a compelling need to know just how good a person that
politician is?" And, several journalists noted in interviews,
questions by the news media about rumors about a candidate -- even
those planted by the opposition -- take on a new life in the era of
the Internet, when widely consulted Web sites like The National
Journal's Hotline duly record every question, and late-night joke,
about every candidate.

The Bush-cocaine question has bounced around Washington and been
referred to in The Hotline for months, getting front-page treatment in
a Wall Street Journal article in May. The Journal article, which
looked at political rumors and how they arise, said there was no
evidence that the Governor had used the drug -- which would be illegal
in every state. The Journal article documented how far the rumor had
spread, and also offered it to a new audience. The cocaine talk
continued, but it did not approach critical mass until Aug. 4.

That morning, the Senate minority leader, Tom Daschle of South Dakota,
was the guest at a regular Washington breakfast for journalists. The
subject of media inquiries into private lives was the topic of the
day, and Daschle made the point that compared with the treatment
journalists had given President Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton and
Vice President Al Gore, Governor Bush was getting off easy. A few
minutes later, Daschle was asked if it was legitimate to ask
candidates about cocaine use. "It's a legitimate question," he said.

At least three reporters came away with the impression that Daschle
was challenging the news media to question Bush about cocaine --
although others thought the two comments were unconnected. Daschle
himself denied siccing the news media on Governor Bush. But by the
time his denial was issued, editors of The Daily News in New York had
taken up the challenge. "Daschle threw down the gauntlet," said Debby
Krenek, the editor in chief of The News. Shortly after the breakfast,
she and other editors had decided to ask all 12 Presidential
candidates about cocaine. An article by Timothy J. Burger the next day
showed the results: 11 denied it, and Governor Bush held to his old
response.

The next day, the cocaine question was the centerpiece of the Fox News
Channel's public affairs program "Hannity & Colmes," which repeated
the question about possible cocaine use three times in teasers before
its discussion actually began. Accounts of the Daschle breakfast were
published in The Chicago Tribune, The Omaha World-Herald and papers in
every large city in Texas.

But the evening news broadcasts were leaving the issue alone, as were
The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times. The Washington Post had
only an Aug. 11 article about the propriety of pressing the cocaine
question. Paul Friedman, the executive producer of the ABC News
program "World News Tonight," said: "My feeling was there was no proof
that the man had used cocaine, there was no evidence, no one was
offering any, and that he was within his rights to say, 'I'm not going
to talk about that.' He has repeatedly said that campaigns ought to be
waged on different ground and that's legitimate."

But Stuart Wilk, the managing editor of The Dallas Morning News, warns
against limiting the reporters' ability to ask questions. "I don't
know that you can ever in mapping out how you're going to cover a
campaign say there are some questions we're never going to ask," Wilk
said. "Circumstances change and circumstances dictate what questions
you are going to ask."

For Wilk, the results of The News's question changed the circumstances
surrounding the cocaine issue. They changed further in the next 10
days, as Time magazine printed Stacks' essay and The New York Times
printed a column by Maureen Dowd pointing out that Bush had opened the
door to questions about his personal life by emphasizing his marital
fidelity. Ms. Dowd said, "It's hard to believe he would be so coy
about cocaine." She wrote, "if he could just say, in a simple
declarative sentence, he had never tried it."

The Dowd column was printed on Wednesday. About the same time, Wilk
said, Scott Parks, a Dallas Morning News reporter, researching a
different issue, found out that the F.B.I. asks some Federal
appointees about prior drug use during routine background checks. He
talked to his colleague Sam Attlesey, and they decided this provided
new context for the old question. On that Wednesday, Governor Bush
called a news conference in Austin to introduce the new Texas
commissioner of education. After fielding questions about education
and a political controversy involving the state funeral commission, he
called on Reuters's reporter in Austin, Hilary Hylton, who began her
question with a reference to the national media's questions about
cocaine rumors. Before she could finish, Governor Bush angrily
interrupted, saying the rumors were "ridiculous and absurd." He added,
"Somebody floats a rumor, and that causes you to ask a question."

The outburst made the evening news broadcast on CBS, and made
headlines from Atlanta to New York. Then, at a campaign stop later in
the day, Attlesey put the question about security clearance to Bush,
who said he could get clearance, and had not used cocaine in the last
seven years. On Thursday morning, at a campaign stop in Roanoke, Va.,
Bush expanded the answer to say that he would have gotten a security
clearance during his father's Administration, when the standard,
Governor Bush said, included the prior 15 years. This was interpreted
as a statement that he denied cocaine use from 1974 onward.

By Thursday night, "World News Tonight" on ABC and "NBC Nightly News,"
which had been among the last holdouts on the subject, broadcast
accounts of the Governor's new answers to the question.

The Los Angeles Times gave the issue front-page display on Friday; The
Washington Post gave it top display in an article that referred to the
events as the "first crisis" for the Governor's campaign. Jackson
Diehl, The Washington Post's assistant managing editor for national
news, said on Friday, "No one is applying a standard to Bush that
isn't applied to others."

The Governor's new answers did not end the questioning, but since
Friday he has indicated that he will not elaborate further.

And questions about the media's questions also continued. Joseph
Lelyveld, the executive editor of The New York Times, said: "We have a
duty to report these things. But we don't have a duty, when candidates
have given us their answers, to keep hammering on them to give us
other answers." Lelyveld added: "There is here the question of who
sets the agenda -- the politicians or the press. And I think that's a
serious question." Marvin Kalb, executive director of the Washington
office of Harvard University's Shorenstein Center on the Press,
Politics and Public Policy, said in an interview, "I do not find
similar passion to ask about the Governor's position toward Russia,
toward the Middle East, toward taxation, toward Social Security."

Meanwhile, the rumor mill about Governor Bush continues to churn, with
new mechanisms being developed every day. On Thursday, journalists at
The Associated Press and The Dallas Morning News received telephone
calls purporting to be from a recently appointed political editor at
The New York Times. In each case, the caller said that a free-lance
journalist was working on an article that would be damaging to Bush,
then described the supposed particulars in detail. "He was trying to
tell us about the story. He gave me a synopsis of what the story was,"
said Carole Feldman, the political editor of The Associated Press. She
and the reporter for The Morning News contacted The Times, and were
told that no such telephone calls had been placed.