EVASIVENESS ON DRUG ISSUE DULLS BUSH'S MEDIA MAGIC

AUSTIN -- The media-charmed Republican presidential campaign of Gov. George
W. Bush has lost some of its magic.

In a matter of five days, Bush went from basking in the glory of being
tapped one of the earliest front-runners in an open presidential primary to
recoiling from a national news media pack baying at him for refusing to say
whether he had ever used illegal drugs, including cocaine.

Probably no Texas politician has seen a relationship with the news media
sour so fast since Ann Richards refused during the 1990 Democratic
gubernatorial primary to say whether she had ever used illegal drugs.

"There are so many similarities that it really is remarkable," said Austin
policy consultant Glenn Smith, who managed Richards' successful primary
campaign.

"Both people were really flying high. Both were darlings. And they've both
reacted the same way, rather testily," he said.

Aside from some occasional harping, sniping, inconclusive investigations and
examinations of his record, Bush's relationship with the news media mostly
has had the enchanted quality of first love.

There were glowing -- sometimes cloying -- profiles of the handsome eldest
son of a former president. Bush had the look of a winner for a
victory-starved Republican Party. He set the record for presidential primary
fund raising, $37 million. He seemed unbeatable.

But things began to turn about two weeks ago.

First there was a car-ride interview with Tucker Carlson in June in which
Bush is portrayed as mocking a Texas death row inmate and using foul
language. Bush said the article "misrepresented" him and told The Washington
Post the interview wasn't a real interview because it wasn't a "sit-down
interview."

Then lawyers in a civil case asked for a contempt of court ruling against
Bush because they said he filed a false statement in a lawsuit brought by
the former director of the Texas Funeral Commission against a company run by
one of Bush's largest campaign contributors. Bush denied the accusation.

And an openly gay state representative publicly recounted a private
conversation between himself and Bush in which the Republican presidential
front-runner urged him not to take personally any anti-gay statements Bush
may make on the campaign trail.

Finally, more than five years after first refusing to answer whether he has
ever used illegal drugs, Bush created a national media firestorm by trying
to answer the question within a certain time frame.

In a May 1994 interview with the Houston Chronicle, Bush first declined to
say whether he had ever used illegal drugs, calling the question of what he
might have done in his youth "irrelevant."

"Maybe I did, maybe I didn't," Bush said.

In January, a reporter for WMUR-TV in New Hampshire rephrased the question
to ask: "Have you ever used drugs? Marijuana? Cocaine?" Again Bush called
the question irrelevant to his ability to govern.

"I do not want to send signals to anybody that what Governor Bush did 30
years ago is cool to try," Bush replied.

Suddenly, it became the cocaine question, not only because Bush did not
settle the issue in his answer, but because Democratic candidates, including
current contenders Vice President Gore and Bill Bradley, have acknowledged
they used marijuana, with little effect on their campaigns. President
Clinton was elected twice with voters aware that he smoked -- but didn't
inhale -- it.

Bush steadfastly refused to answer, repeating his basic stand Aug. 5 after
Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota said he thought the
news media had gone easy on Bush in not pressing for an answer to "a
legitimate question."

But last week Bush cracked the door open again by acknowledging that he had
been drug free for seven years, then he amended the statement to 25 years.

But what was left unanswered was whether Bush had used any illegal drugs
before 1974.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the Annenberg School for Communications at
the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, said she is amazed that the
news media is pushing the question against Bush, even though no evidence has
surfaced that he actually ever used illegal drugs.

"Why is the press bringing this up when it has not one piece of evidence,
not one," Jamieson said. "At least with Clinton and the charges of
womanizing, there was sufficient evidence out there to think there was a
pattern."

Jamieson said the mainstream news media have used the excuse that it has to
follow up on reports in less reputable outlets, such as supermarket
tabloids, online magazines or cable TV networks.

But in fact, she said, the drug question was pushed again immediately after
Bush's victory in the Aug. 14 straw poll, by the major news networks and by
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.

"Where's the tabloid that says he used cocaine? The tabloids are saying he
was involved in a branding scandal," Jamieson said.

The branding she mentioned involves a 1967 story in the Yale Daily News that
accused the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity of branding pledges in an
initiation rite. Bush, who was the fraternity president at the time, told
the school paper that the brandings were "insignificant" and amounted to
"only a cigarette burn." The New Haven Register revived the story in June,
quoting one of Bush's former roommates as saying the original story was
exaggerated.

Jamieson said underlying both stories is whether issues of Bush's youth or
distant past matter to voters who are trying to decide what kind of leader
he might be today.

"It (the drug question) is the pre-eminent issue for reporters looking for a
scandal. I don't see any evidence from the polls that the public thinks it's
an issue," Jamieson said.

"At what point is the past past. People do mature across time."

Smith, the Richards campaign manager, said Bush, like Richards, is
courageous in not answering the question. Richards, a recovering alcoholic,
said in 1990 she did not want to say anything that might stop someone
suffering from substance abuse from seeking treatment.

"Their refusal to answer questions about their past didn't affect their
ability to govern," Smith said.

Smith said the down side for Bush, like Richards, is that few people around
the country know much about him and this may become his identifying mark.
When the question came up for Richards, few Texans knew much about her, he
said.

"That's kind of a vulnerable position to be in," Smith said. "The drug
question was the first thing a lot of people heard about Ann. It hurt us."

But it also helped.

Jamieson noted that when Richards' primary opponent, former Attorney General
Jim Mattox, began running TV commercials accusing Richards of drug abuse, it
backfired and helped her win. Jamieson said she likewise believes the news
media will create "sympathy" for Bush.

Smith said Bush now faces the same challenge that President Clinton did in
1992 when Gennifer Flowers accused him of adultery.

"Clinton couldn't get his message out, and he turned that into the message
of `I'm the comeback kid,' " Smith said. "And that's what Ann did in '90.
She kind of said, `I'm tough. I can take these punches and fight back.' "

Republican political consultant Charles Black -- who helped run campaigns
for former Presidents Reagan and Bush -- said he believes the drug question
will be a bump in the road for Gov. Bush. Black said that even though Bush
let himself be drawn off track last week, that soon the controlled candidate
Bush will re-emerge.

"What you'll see with Governor Bush is he is smart, disciplined. He will get
in a short period of time to the answer he wants to give and then be
extremely disciplined at sticking to it," Black said.

Black said for Bush or any other presidential candidate it is just a
question of timing on when the media honeymoon ends.

"You don't go through a two-year campaign without having some dust-ups with
the news media," Black said.

-- [Note: The following text box appears in print on page 14A, but is not
available on the Houston Chronicle web site. -- Art]

Bush's words

Here's how Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush has answered
questions about whether he has ever used illegal drugs:

May 3, 1994: "Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. What's the relevance?"

April 21, 1997: "I made a lot of mistakes in the past; I'm just not going to
itemize them."

August 5, 1999: "Everybody's got to play it the way they want to play it,
but times have changed in politics. There's a game of vicious gossip, and
I'm not going to participate in the game of vicious gossip."

August 18, morning: "You know what happens. Somebody floats a rumor and it
causes you to ask a question. And that's the game in American politics and
I refuse to play it. This is a game and you just fell for the trap and I
refuse to play."

August 18, evening: "As I understand it, the current (White House security
clearance) form asks the question, `Did somebody use drugs within the last
seven years?' And I will be glad to answer that question, and the answer is
no."

August 19, morning: "Not only could I pass the background check and the
standards applied to today's White House, but I could have passed the
background check and the standards applied on the most stringent conditions
when my dad was president of the United States. I have told the people of
this country that over two decades ago, I made some mistakes when I was
younger."

August 20: "One of the interesting questions facing baby boomers is, have we
grown up? Are we willing to share the wisdom of past mistakes? ... I think a
baby boomer parent ought to say, `I have learned from the mistakes I may or
may not have made, and I'd like to share some wisdom with you and that is --
don't do drugs."