THE $37 MILLION MAN TRIPS UP

The man who promised to "restore dignity to the White House" has had a
pratfall. George W. Bush is, to use his father's immortal phrase, "in deep
doo-doo."

Having vowed he never would, the Republican presidential candidate is
answering questions about previous drug use. He has made himself, despite
his astronomical poll ratings and his groaning treasury, a mere mortal.
Bush's angry progress last week--from Louisiana, where he said emphatically
on Wednesday that he could meet the FBI application standard about no drug
use in the past seven years, to Virginia, where he said the next day that
he was clean during his father's presidency--was the landscape-altering
event his opponents have prayed for. His staff has put the cutoff date for
doing what he has not yet admitted doing at age 28. The awkward question of
whether he could qualify for a White House staff appointment, the
application for which asks about drug use back to age 18, is still hanging
in the air.

Can he survive? He can. He is still personable and engaging. He still has
his record as a madly popular Texas governor. He still has his name, which
stirs Republican pride--and guilt that his father lost to Bill Clinton. He
has the cover of claiming to be born again on his 40th birthday. He has
discussed his wild youth. Did it end at 40? Republicans have a more
extended view of when middle age begins. Chairman Henry Hyde of the House
Judiciary Committee, which sat in judgment on Clinton, called his own
affair with a married woman at the age of 46 "a youthful indiscretion."

In striking back, Bush has lashed out at the press, at "the politics of
personal destruction." He has sought to be praised for his refusal to play
"the Washington game" of making a candidate prove a negative. He played the
same game himself quite enthusiastically when he told the world that he had
been a faithful husband. It was plainly an attempt to cast himself as a
person morally superior to the current occupant of the White House.

For Bush, the worst aspect of the whole thing may be that he has now
invited comparison with Clinton, the man he is trying to run against. Bush
strategists know that the man who will likely be the Democratic nominee, Al
Gore, suffers greatly from Clinton drag, the so-called "Clinton fatigue"
that keeps the vice president sinking in the polls.

Bush isn't handling drug queries any better than Clinton did in 1992. When
the governor of Arkansas was asked, as were all politicos who grew up in
the tumultuous '60s, if he had been part of the drug culture, he tap danced
for months. He started out with "none of your business"--but the press
continued to press. Clinton said defiantly that he "had never broken the
laws of my country."

Finally, during the New York primary, a reporter framed it more sharply:
Had Clinton used drugs as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford? He admitted that he
had "experimented with marijuana." His embellishment, that he "didn't
inhale," has passed into the political lexicon as a synonym for weaselly
irrelevance. The questioning ended there.

Bush, however, must expect more. Bush's blanket alibi of behaving
irresponsibly when he "was young and irresponsible" will not suffice. It
won't satisfy people serving stiff cocaine sentences in Texas jails.

It could well be that Bush had his own family rather the country in mind
when he was stubbornly refusing to answer questions about drugs. Drug
counselors urge users to keep their past a secret from their children. Bush
is the father of teen-age twin girls.

Whatever his reasons, he now has a new and daunting mission to perform. He
must demonstrate that he is a serious person, a premise seriously
questioned in a story by Tucker Carlson in Talk magazine. Carlson is a
pleasant young conservative with a sharp pen. He depicted the governor as a
swaggerer deficient in the compassion he claims. Bush laughed at a woman
whose death sentence he declined to commute, Carlson wrote.

Bush was miffed by what he regarded as friendly fire. His excuses were
lame: It wasn't a serious interview, they hadn't been seated at the time.

Bush was First Son at the White House; he must have watched his father
stand up at a microphone and speak of momentous things. He should know that
many presidents fling headlines over their shoulders while hurrying to
their helicopters.

Now he has to prove he is a thoughtful man who considers carefully what he
says. He has to convince the country he learned something important from
his wild youth. It doesn't matter what he did 25 years ago. But what he
says about it does matter. He must, in short, demonstrate maturity. We've
had a teen president for the last seven years. It may not be quite time for
another.