  
|
| |||||||
|
"Scam" ads the norm Trail Mix: Hillary haters spam cyberspace Gunning for the center Democrats make Hillary legit The blundering pundit Don Giuliani Campaign video: |
Smoke in his eyes | page 1, 2, 3 The New York Times, to whom I lied to about his drug use in 1988. I've talked with the Tennessean. They're the paper that I lied to and made up the story about Al's drug use. And you. Could you explain what you mean when you say you lied to these reporters?
Al was putting out a story, and I helped him. In 1988, when Douglas Ginsberg withdrew his nomination to the Supreme Court because he admitted he had smoked pot, that was in the middle of the 1988 campaign. So they asked all the candidates if they had smoked pot. And Al called me and asked me to stonewall. I argued with him, I said, "If you get everybody to stonewall, then you're just raising the red flag, and the press will scrutinize you even further." But he put pressure on me to stonewall. What do you mean by "pressure"? He called me three times in one morning, and he said, "Don't talk to the press at all about this." That's a stonewall, and it's another form of lying. But I couldn't do that. But I was torn. I felt a debt to the Tennessean, a paper that taught me everything about the truth. And I had a friendship with Al. So I came up with this half-truth. And that was, that Al had tried it a couple of times with me and he didn't like pot. Whose idea was this story? That was my idea. He wanted me to stonewall. But the story I said was the opposite of truth. Because he and I smoked every day for I don't know how long. And he loved it. But by saying what I did to the Tennessean, that basically killed the issue. [When asked about this, Gore spokesman Lehane says the vice president has no recollection of this conversation.] But Al Gore never specifically asked you to lie, right? Now we're getting into lawyerisms. Al asked me to not tell the truth. You tell me what you call that. He asked me to not tell the truth. He said, "I want you to not talk to them. I want you to tell them that's private." Did Al ask me not to lie? He asked me not to tell the truth. That's what he wanted. And to me that would look like a coverup. So I said, "Don't worry, I won't hurt you." So I ended up telling them this thing which ended up not being the truth. I said, "Al smoked a couple times" -- that was a lie. I said, "Al didn't like it" -- that was a lie. Now, did he ask me to say those words? No. But he wanted me to not tell the truth. I went to seminary for four years. We call that in religious terms a sin of omission. It's a lie. But Al implied that what he wanted me to do wasn't lying. But it's not actually asking you to lie, right? I'm not going to be a lawyer on this. That's what Clinton did. He twisted reality around so much we didn't know right or wrong anymore. I feel sorry for you guys, having to go through these statements while the country has been lawyered like this. In 1987, Gore said that he hadn't smoked pot approximately since 1972. When was the last time you smoked pot with him? It was in 1976, the year he first ran for Congress. I smoked with him right before he ran and if my memory is correct I smoked with him one time during the campaign. So why come forward with this? Well, I've been living with this for years, and feeling horrible about it. And talking with my therapist -- I hate to get too New Agey here -- but he thought I was under tremendous pressure because of this. So then I heard [Turque] was writing this book. And this was a part of Al's life that was real. In all the biographies of Al out there, there was this false story going on about Al, and a false story about his drug use. And I felt that I had to be straight. I was part of that lie. So I called Bill. So I told him what I knew. And when I told Bill, he was dead silent. I gave him some names of people who could verify what I was saying. And he put down part of it in his book, though not all of it. So why talk to me -- or anybody else? Well, I like your stuff. I enjoy reading it. And I knew you'd be fair. But you can do whatever you want with it. If you want to give me a beating, give me a beating. But is this part of some vendetta against Gore? Not at all. I like Al. I'm going to vote for him. He was a close friend and now I still like him. I don't think this is enough to vote against him. I think he's the best candidate of them all. But ...? But I want to see the American people vote for him on honesty and the full story and not a fabrication. That's why I'm doing what I'm doing. I want the whole story to get out. And of course, this is just part of it. So you're doing this for the American people? No, I'm doing this to clear my conscience. I've felt terrible about this. Really. I've felt depressed about this for years and years. And my psychiatrist said this is terrible and he said I got to do something about this. I am in AA and we do go about things like this in this way. But why now? Well, I didn't plan on this timing. This is Newsweek's timing. I thought this excerpt was going to be published in December, but what came out in Newsweek was the other part of that interview with me, which had to do with Al going to Vietnam and Tipper coming to my house and having these breakdowns. In December, I thought instead of that story they were going to run with the drug story. And then I thought this was going to come out last Friday. But Bill called me and said that his editors killed it, or at least pulled it. And you don't think Newsweek's going to run this? I do, but they'll print the watered-down version. And who knows when they'll do it. And it's an issue that needs to be discussed on the campaign trail before the primaries are over, before March. Al will be coronated by then. And I think they're going to print such a watered-down version. It's not going to resemble what I told Bill or what actually happened. Plus, if anything, I think Bill has watered down some of the stories of our pot-smoking expeditions. Can you explain a little bit about the media food chain by which this story came to DRCNet and Mediagossip.com? Well, after Bill called me, I thought that the only democracy left is the Internet. So I called the drug legalization people because it wasn't another media, so I wasn't going to be betraying Bill by going to another competing media. It's a nonpartisan group, a clearinghouse for drug reform news. And it's only a little publication, it only has like 10,000 readers and it comes out on Thursday on the Internet. And with them there was no chance of editors coming in and changing things, or lawyers taking stuff out, or all of that crap when you deal with corporations. Some people might see this as a way for you just to get famous. I'm not anxious to do a lot of media. But I'm going to wait and see what Al has to say, and their reaction. If they make this a war of who is telling the truth, then I've got things ... and I'll keep coming back with more and more information. He's running for the highest office in the land. And we have a drug policy that's been a total failure. And he's been part of it for the last eight years. And not one debate has even brought this up.
|
|||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||
More news on 
Next page |