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Feature
Louder than words
George W. Bush, who refuses to answer questions about his own drug use, slashed drug rehabilitation programs for inmates while ushering in tougher sentencing laws.
By Robert Bryce
[08/24/99]

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Feature
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Feature
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By Robert Bryce
[08/20/99]

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Are the laws that send thousands of people to prison every year for drug possession administered fairly? Is justice served by incarcerating young, nonviolent drug offenders? Should the courts mandate treatment rather than imprisonment for people who make the kind of "mistake" that the Republican front-runner has now all but admitted?

Journalists playing the gotcha game delight in pointing out the contradictions in Bush's selective discussion of his own character and behavior. He is eager to inform us that he is a faithful spouse and a teetotalling churchgoer, but he is offended when we inquire about his "youthful indiscretions" -- giving off a whiff of hypocrisy that smells all too familiar at this point.

Already, however, the arguments over what presidential candidates should have to reveal about their past personal misbehavior sound shopworn and frivolous. It's obviously time for the press corps to try shouldering a little more intellectual weight.

Joe Conason Joe Conason's column appears in Salon News every other Tuesday. + Biography + Archives

What matters here is not what Bush should or shouldn't say about himself, but whether he and all the other politicians advocating harsh punishment of drug offenders can square that failed policy with their personal experience. ("They got caught and I didn't" probably wouldn't go over too well in a focus group.) If and when the Texas governor reaches the confessional stage of his campaign crisis, someone ought to ask him why he believes a 14-year-old Houston slum kid should do time in an adult facility for the same "crime" that had no legal consequences at all for the wealthy, white and well-connected "W."

Answering honestly would require Bush to acknowledge one of the uglier aspects of the bipartisan "war on drugs" -- which is that like other kinds of wars, the casualties of this endless conflict are heavily concentrated among those who lack money, influence and social standing. Class will tell, as the saying used to go in places like Kennebunkport.

And what class tells us is that rich drug abusers get treatment and sympathy, while the poor get prison and scorn. The social disparities in the punishment of drug offenders are aptly illustrated by two cases: one that is statistically valid, and another that is simply real.

Next page | Out of the clinic and back to the party