President Bush, Drugs and Opinions
From: Steve Harris and Steve Puckett
Date: Sun Feb 27, 2005 10:57:09 AM US/Central
To: bmoos@dallasnews.com
Cc: bflatt@dallasnews.com
Subject: " Bush on Tape" letters inquiry
Was trying to locate & view letters (Bush on Tape - Sunday Reader - page 3h) on your internet site and could not locate them. I would like to share them, and mark davis' column, with friends. Are they posted ? Any help would be appreciated.
Regards, S Harris
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From: "Flatt, Brenda"
Date: Tue Mar 01, 2005 09:54:44 AM US/Central
To: "'Steve Harris and Steve Puckett'"
Subject: RE: " Bush on Tape" letters inquiry
Dear Steve Harris:
Following is a copy of Mark Davis' last column. The Bush on Tape letters
weren't posted due to an oversight. They should be posted some time later
this morning when our copy editor arrives. Sorry for the oversight! And we
thank you for calling it to our attention.
Regards,
Brenda Flatt Lilley
Administrative Assistant
Editorial Department
----------------------------------
Mark Davis
Bush betrayed in the name of history? Yeah, right
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
How does one begin a conversation with Douglas Wead? I chose a standard
approach: "Hey, Doug, how are you doing?"
His answer spoke volumes. "Not real well."
I believe him. Since he made the choice to release conversations taped
without the knowledge of then-Gov. George W. Bush, his name and reputation
have been savaged from coast to coast.
That cannot be fun. As I got my opportunity to question him on his book tour
yesterday, I sensed he was already beaten to a pulp by the reaction to his
betrayal.
"I wish I had it all to do over again," he told me. "This has just been
horrible."
Well, how handy that there is no time tunnel for him to step into, offering
the chance to retroactively do the right thing. As it is, he will simply
have to live with the status quo, which means he is momentarily the most
sought-after author in America, on tour to promote a book that will now sell
far better than it would have without the secret tapes.
Poor baby.
Mr. Wead wants to dissuade you from thinking he is a money-grubbing Judas.
"I could have released the book in the campaign season and made about a
million dollars more," he insists.
Oh, really? The book, The Raising of a President, is a happy walk through
some presidents' family histories, not a work of hardball politics. The
tapes would have attracted a spike of attention last fall, but I don't know
whether that would have sent waves of readers to bookstores to get Mr.
Wead's take on Joe Kennedy.
Meanwhile, the author peddles the narcissistic notion that, but for his
account, history would somehow suffer. "I'm not doing this for the money or
to sell books," he told me - during his book tour designed to sell books
that make money. He insists that it is his regard for accurate history that
motivates him.
All right, let's review what new historical perspectives the tapes reveal.
As this newspaper's Tuesday editorial properly observes, that answer is:
none.
Faced with this fact, Mr. Wead begins his awkward plea for public sympathy.
He describes how he wanted nothing more than to provide a full historical
account. Faced with skepticism, he wanted to be believed.
Skepticism from whom? First, from his own publisher's attorneys. He chose to
attribute to an anonymous source a story of youthful indiscretion from Mr.
Bush's own lips. The lawyers needed more, so he coughed up the tapes.
The story then stumbles into offices at The New York Times, where a
newspaper that's had it in for Mr. Bush since he began running also needed
corroboration. Once again, tapes satisfied the beast.
Today, Mr. Wead asserts with a straight face that this was all somehow
beyond his control.
"At what point did you lose the right to make decisions about the release of
the tapes?" I asked.
"It's all so painful now and so complicated that I can't put my finger on
it." Do tell.
And as for this notion that his words would not pass muster without tapes, I
asked why Bob Woodward can publish reams of stories about the most public of
figures, many of which have been criticized as embellished fantasy, and
never cough up tape No. 1. "Why didn't you just tell the publishers, the
lawyers and The Times: This is my story, I obviously know the Bushes, my
credibility is not suspect, and stand your ground, refusing to betray a
friend?"
He paused. "Wow, I wish I'd had you with me in those negotiations."
Flatterer.
Somehow I think Mr. Wead had enough smarts and decency to reach that
conclusion himself. But he weaseled out when faced with the temptations of
opportunism.
The Mark Davis Show airs from 9 a.m. to noon weekdays on WBAP News/Talk 820.
His column regularly appears Wednesdays on Viewpoints, and his e-mail
address is mdavis@wbap .com.
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Letters: Bush on tape
10:40 AM CST on Tuesday, March 1, 2005
Deniability now gone
Re: "Bush betrayed in the name of history? Yeah, right," by Mark Davis, Wednesday Viewpoints.
Mark Davis took Douglas Wead to task, not for revealing what George Bush said but for allowing others (publishers, lawyers and The New York Times) to hear the tapes.
In past political campaigns, the president steadfastly refused to talk about an earlier, dark period in his life. There was some vague mention that he needed to give up drinking but no admissions about drugs. That provided deniability. Now, his own words – on tape – blow that deniability.
Had Mr. Wead not exposed the tapes, conservatives could have brushed off his revelations as the rantings of a troubled mind.
Tom O'Connor, Dallas
This wastes our time
George W. Bush is a terrible president, but this recent fascination with whether he may have admitted trying drugs is an absurd distraction from the real issues.
How does whether Mr. Bush has ever been high matter to the millions of Americans with no access to health care? Or to those lied to and strung along about the reasons for going to war?
Let's elevate our dialogue to issues that actually affect the country and not waste time with extraneous sensationalism.
Jacob Bilhartz, Dallas
What we learned
Re: "Et Tu, Weadie? – A Bush friend sells out cheap," Tuesday Editorials.
This is a good example of partisanship at The Dallas Morning News . President Bush lied about a felony, that he possessed and used cocaine and marijuana. Let's look at what the rest of us learned:
•That Mr. Bush thinks it is OK to lie. Oh, right, we knew that from his claims about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction.
•That, as a role model, Mr. Bush teaches our children that admitting to a wrong should be avoided. Overcoming addiction requires honesty, so what kind of role model is he to drug users?
•Finally, that he is a hypocrite. He promised to restore integrity to the White House; he should restore integrity to his own house first.
Gary Beason, Carrollton
Legacy of hypocrisy
Re: "Et Tu, Weadie? – A Bush friend sells out cheap," Tuesday Editorials.
A good editorial except for one error, and it was a big one: "You can accuse George W. Bush of many things, but hypocrisy is not one of them." Apparently, no one at your paper has a dictionary.
"Hypocrite" contrasts a person's actions with his words. Saying the same thing in private and public does not mean one is free of hypocrisy. Saying you are a "fiscal conservative" while running up the largest deficits in history is a great example of hypocrisy.
Starting a war, justifying it with lies and professing to be a Christian would be another.
John Pouland, Fort Worth
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