GOV. BUSH AND DRUG REHAB CLINICS

After Noelle Bush was accused last week of having crack cocaine, Gov. Bush
said, "This is a private issue as it relates to my daughter, myself and my
wife." His political life and his private life, the governor insists, do
not intersect.

Gov. Bush himself has brought up his daughter at least twice in public;
once this spring at a Tallahassee drug summit, and once last month while he
campaigned at a Pentecostal church. Both times, Gov. Bush asked supporters
to pray for Noelle, who is 25, and both times Gov. Bush cried.

It would be foolish for anyone who has a daughter or son not safely into
those 30-something years to start thinking that he or she is a superior
parent to Jeb and Columba Bush. Addictions are complex and powerful. Good
parents can have troubled kids. The intersection between the governor's
public and private lives is not that his daughter's plight proves anything
about him as a parent. Rather, Noelle Bush and her parents, in their
private capacity, have been let down by a system that Gov. Bush, in his
official capacity, also has let down.

Specifically, Gov. Bush has not kept his 4-year-old pledge to fix the
Florida Department of Children and Families, which oversees a range of
services and clinics -- including the one in Orange County that is
providing treatment to Noelle Bush. DCF has been more concerned with
covering its own butt than with looking after the children and families
supposedly in the state's care. Gov. Bush, in his political life, has been
engaged in a similar duck-and-cover.

When top DCF officials learned in May that 5-year-old Rilya Wilson had been
missing for a year without anybody noticing, they waited six days before
notifying police. They wanted to handle it in-house. Gov. Bush, meanwhile,
raised his own smokescreens, appointing a panel of cronies to investigate.
It was no surprise when they backed DCF leadership -- a conclusion exposed
as foolish when the governor appointed Bush family loyalist Jerry Regier to
replace Kathleen Kearney as the agency's secretary.

The latest CYA attempt by a state-supported institution involves Noelle
Bush. She is being treated for substance abuse at the Center for Drug- Free
Living in Orlando. A judge sent her there as an alternative to prosecution
after she was arrested in Tallahassee in January and charged with
fraudulently obtaining the prescription drug Xanax. The treatment facility
is not part of DCF, but it is licensed by DCF and apparently shares that
agency's tendency toward self-protection.

Last week, a center resident tipped police that the staff had found crack
cocaine in Ms. Bush's shoe. Police investigated, and one employee was
providing a written statement. But her supervisor told the worker to stop
cooperating, and the employee tore up her statement.

Police then said they couldn't charge Ms. Bush because center employees
wouldn't cooperate. The police officer said a center official told them it
was "standard operating procedure to handle these types of situations
in-house." Possessing any amount of cocaine is a felony in Florida. There
is no "in-house" exemption. The Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office has
subpoenaed four of the workers.

The Miami Herald later reported that "the police report raised questions
whether officials at the Center for Drug-Free Living may have given Noelle
Bush special treatment." But this isn't a case of Noelle Bush getting
special treatment. It's a case of the agency, which provides services in
part with public dollars, trying to give itself special treatment. Ms. Bush
is at the center precisely because she needs special treatment. It's not
unusual for an addict to have lapses before treatment succeeds. The big
question isn't whether Ms. Bush had crack, even though it could result in
another felony charge. The question is how she got it and whether the
Center for Drug-Free Living or its employees is at fault.

On Friday, a judge delayed reviewing Noelle Bush's case because center
employees won't cooperate. She could be sent to jail, as she was briefly in
July when caught with unauthorized prescription drugs. She also could be
bounced from the program and face the original charge in Tallahassee and
the potential other charge in Orlando.

Dropping her from the program would not help. As a father, and as a
governor, however, Mr. Bush should be holding DCF and the clinics with
which the agency is allied accountable. Secrecy helps bureaucrats and
politicians, not drug treatment clients.