BUSH AND COCAINE: DO WE NEED TO KNOW?

The New York Daily News asked 12 presidential candidates last week if they
had ever used cocaine, but it was really only interested in the one who
wouldn't answer.

Texas Gov. George W. Bush steadfastly has refused to say whether he used
illegal drugs in what he calls his "irresponsible" youth. But news
organizations appear increasingly disinclined to accept that response. And
their persistence is making the question a campaign issue, despite the lack
of any evidence tying Bush to past cocaine use.

"As soon as they ask it, it becomes a story and is put in circulation in a
way that may be very unfair to the person who's asked," said Richard Lowry,
editor of the National Review. Still, he said of Bush's response: "Most
people conclude if he can't answer no, there must be some problem."

The Daily News made its inquiries after Senate Minority Leader Thomas
Daschle, D-S.D., said at a press breakfast earlier this month that past
drug use was "a legitimate question" for presidential candidates and
suggested journalists were giving Bush an easy ride.

Eleven of the 12 candidates denied through spokesmen that they had ever
used cocaine; a Bush spokeswoman declined to answer. The headline: "Bush
Won't Reveal If He's Used Cocaine."

"It seemed to me that asking the whole dozen of them was a more fair way
than just singling out one," said Daily News reporter Timothy Burger, who
attended the Daschle breakfast. "Somehow the question has become a fairly
mainstream question. . . . With all the other candidates answering
squarely, across the ideological spectrum, they appeared not to have a
problem with the question."

Karen Hughes, Bush's communications director, said Tuesday that "as a
former reporter, I was stunned that the press has given as much attention
to rumors that are completely unfounded."

Bush, she said, "has been honest about the fact he's made mistakes in the
past. He's not going to play the game of trying to disprove the rumor du
jour. This kind of rumor, gossip and innuendo drives people out of
politics, and he is willing to take that on. He recognizes that will
sometimes lead journalists to make mistaken assumptions."

The buzz is clearly growing louder. The cocaine rumor has been debated in
recent days on "Fox News Sunday," CNN's "Capital Gang," CNBC's "Hardball"
and ABC's "This Week."

A number of news organizations have posed the question. Two Washington Post
reporters pressed Bush about cocaine use in reporting a seven-part series
on his life. "I'm not going to talk about what I did years ago," the
governor said.

A reporter for New Hampshire's WMUR-TV also asked the question on a CNN
program. "It is irrelevant what I did 20 to 30 years ago," Bush said.

Questions about the personal lives of candidates have become far more
common in the hypercompetitive media climate of the 1990s. But they are
often triggered by specific allegations, such as when Gennifer Flowers
charged in 1992 that she had a long-running affair with candidate Bill Clinton.

During that campaign, when the Daily News editorial board asked Clinton if
he had ever used marijuana, he replied: "I have never broken the laws of my
country." He later acknowledged in a television interview that he had tried
pot while in Britain, adding famously that he "didn't inhale."

Other politicians, including Vice President Gore, have acknowledged past
marijuana use with no apparent penalty. But an admission of having tried
cocaine, the focus of major federal antidrug initiatives and much
inner-city violence, could be more problematic.

Hypocritical or relevant? The larger question for the media is whether
there should be some kind of statute of limitations on rumors about
youthful transgressions by candidates.

"On any question involving drugs, the press is just totally hypocritical,"
said Walter Shapiro, a USA Today columnist. "For those over 35 and under
70, there are significant periods of one's life that one tries to pretend
didn't happen when you're asking about drugs." He added that it is "far
more relevant what (Bush) knows about foreign policy than what he knows
about what went up his nose or didn't go up his nose."

Other journalists observe that Bush has talked openly about drinking
heavily before he was 40 and has denied any extramarital affairs, rendering
his silence on the cocaine question rather selective.

"The media's attitude is, if you're going to talk about your alcohol abuse
and your relations with your wife, why won't you answer this question?"
said National Review's Lowry. "I think eventually he'll have to answer it."