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Hated in Macedonia
U.S. troops, like Kosovo refugees, know how it feels to be despised.
By Laura Rozen
[04/08/99]

Divided we stand
American and Israeli Jews are split over the crisis in Kosovo.
By J.J. Goldberg
[04/08/99]

The bleak gets bleaker
The Kosovo crisis will almost certainly be succeeded by a crisis in Macedonia, in Montenegro, in Albania and, finally, in Serbia itself.
By David Rieff
[04/07/99]

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"Pussy," George W. replied.

Bush has also acknowledged that he used to drink to excess, though he's insisted that he hasn't touched a drop since his 40th birthday celebration 12 years ago. (He won't admit to alcoholism, however.) But he abjectly refuses to comment on his rumored use of other, less legal, self-medicatons -- like the use of marijuana or (cue the thunderclap) cocaine. When interviewed by WMUR-TV in New Hampshire, and asked if "drugs, marijuana, cocaine" had ever found their way into his bloodstream, Bush replied: "I'm not going to talk about what I did as a child. What I am going to talk about -- and I am going to say this consistently -- [is that] it is irrelevant what I did 20 to 30 years ago. What's relevant is that I have learned from any mistakes I made. I do not want to send signals to anybody that what Gov. Bush did 30 years ago is cool to try."

Bush's Clintonian statements aren't helping to put the issue to bed. "If I had done anything in the past that would have disqualified me for being in public office, you'd have found it," Bush said to reporters when asked about the whispers about his past. "When I put my hand on the Bible and was sworn to uphold the laws of the land, of the state, I also implicitly said I'd uphold the dignity of the office I was elected to, and I have done so." If there exists anyone out there who couldn't teach Parsing 101 after watching our president's weaselly ways this past year, let's be clear what Bush is denying in the above statement: absolutely nothing.

"There are rumors that he might have danced on a bar in the nude when he was in college, that's one thing," ardent supporter Gerry Solomon admits. "But you're not breaking any laws there. And whatever he did in his 30s, he was not an alcoholic. In the environment he was working in -- which was the high rollers in Texas in the '80s -- there might have been situations that were not exemplary. But since that time I don't think there was anything, and he hasn't broken the law. He's said that he drank too much, but since he straightened himself out, he's led an exemplary life."

Democratic and Republican campaign operatives say that the persistent rumors are something that Bush will have to deal with more candidly if he wants to hold the most powerful job in the world. But so far, the Bush campaign disagrees.

"The rumors are ridiculous and we're not going to dignify them with responses," says Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes.

But the campaign's refusal to "dignify" rumors is inconsistent. Hughes will address the gossip about Bush's alleged womanizing, for example, insisting that her boss has been faithful to his wife. (And lest we forget, it was George W. who in 1987 was handed the unseemly task of telling the world that his father had never strayed from his mother: "The answer to 'the Big A' is N-O," he said.) So it seems that the younger Bush is only unwilling to dignify media intrusions into his personal life when the subject involves the use of illegal narcotics -- arguably a personal tidbit far more relevant than infidelity for someone aspiring to be what Republicans during impeachment termed the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the United States.

Ironically, Bush is counting on impeachment fatigue -- fed up voters tired of tales of soiled dresses, spelunking cigars and the like -- to make opponents' efforts to bring up his past backfire. The questions are "an unpleasant fact of political life, and one of the reasons people are so disgusted with politics," says Hughes. "He has admitted that as a younger man he has made mistakes, but he is not going to itemize them. Everyone has to decide on their own how they're going to answer these kinds of irrelevant questions. Gov. Bush has decided how he's going to handle it."

That approach is flying with some politicos. One expert New Hampshire political observer says that Bush is riding high in the polls there right now and probably won't have to address any tawdry allegations unless tangible proof of wrongdoing materializes. "If George W. just says, 'Quite frankly, I'm not answering that; you'll have to take me as I am,' I think he'll be fine," says New Hampshire State Sen. Pat Krueger. "If this were four years ago, it might be different. But now, we've just been so inundated with this stuff the only ones asking the questions are reporters, not Joe Schmo."

Dee Stewart, executive director of the Republican Party of Iowa, goes so far as to say that by refusing to delve into his past mistakes, Bush is setting a proud example. "So many things today celebrate all the wrong things about people's lives and in a way, it's irresponsible," Stewart says. The culture war has never been about eradicating immoral behaviors, Stewart says, it's been about not wanting to celebrate them. "When you look at an opinion leader like Bill Clinton who bragged that he used marijuana and laughed about it -- and over the next six years there was a rise in the use of marijuana by 140 percent -- it's clear that the statements that leaders make do affect society. What Bush is saying by not getting into it is, 'Hey, we don't bring out the best in our children by celebrating the mistakes that we may have made in our past.'"

But a Gallup poll conducted in February for CNN/USA Today indicates that 72 percent of Republicans believe that the public has a right to know if a presidential candidate "had used drugs in the past." And even some of Bush's most ardent supporters think the sandbags can't hold indefinitely. "I think he will [address the rumors] in due course," says former Rep. Solomon. "I think he will answer all questions in due course. But I don't think anything he's done can compare to Bill Clinton."

Republican National Committeeman Asher agrees. "At the appropriate time, the governor will have to address whatever rumors are out there."

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