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FOCUS: Bush Gets Stoned by World Media
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/022405Z.shtml

Bush Gets Stoned by the World Media
   By Jefferson Morley
   The Washington Post
   Thursday 24 February 2005

U.S. press less interested in drug remarks.

President Bush all but admits to illicit drug use for the first time.

Overseas it's the stuff of headlines. At home, the U.S. press has generally downplayed the story.

   The divergent coverage of Bush's apparent drug use is a textbook study 
in the difference between the international online media and their American 
counterparts. On the issue of youthful illicit drug use, most U.S. news 
editors -- liberal, conservative or other -- defer to Bush in a way that 
their foreign counterparts do not.

   The New York Times broke the Bush marijuana story Friday in a front-page 
report on Doug Wead, a Christian activist who has published a book based in 
part on conversations with Bush that Wead secretly recorded in 1998 and 
1999. On Wead's tapes, whose authenticity the White House does not dispute, 
Bush came close to admitting he had smoked marijuana and avoided answering a 
question about whether he had used cocaine.

   "I wouldn't answer the marijuana questions. You know why? Because I 
don't want some little kid doing what I tried," Bush said.

   On a question about cocaine, Bush replied, "Rather than saying no ... I 
think it's time for someone to draw the line and look people in the eye and 
say, you know, 'I'm not going to participate in ugly rumors about me and 
blame my opponents,' and hold the line. Stand up for a system that will not 
allow this kind of crap to go on,'" according to a transcript excerpt posted 
on ABC's "Good Morning America" Web site.

   Since Bush has never acknowledged using drugs, the international media 
played up the marijuana angle.

   The BBC emphasized Bush's discretion in addressing the subject, saying 
"Bush hints he tried marijuana." So did Aljazeera: "Tapes hint Bush smoked 
marijuana." Swissinfo, a news site in Geneva, asked "Did Bush smoke pot?"

   In Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald focused on Bush's reasoning for 
not talking about the issue publicly. Bush worried young people would copy 
his cannabis use, the paper said.

   From South America to the Middle East to Asia, other news sites 
concluded that Bush's statements amounted to a confession.

   "Bush confessed to having smoked marijuana in his youth," declared Las 
Ultimas Noticias (in Spanish), a Chilean tabloid. "Bush's Marijuana 
Confession on Television," said Zaman, a leading Turkish daily. "Bush admits 
using marijuana," said Rediff, a news portal in India. In Tokyo, Japan Today 
said, "Secret tapes indicate Bush used drugs as youth."

   A few foreign sites offered more light-hearted headlines. "Bush's own 
'smoking gun'," said the South Africa broadcast outlet, News24. The Economic 
Times of India sounded less than shocked: "Oh boy! George may have puffed on 
marijuana" was their headline.

   In contrast, most of the traditional leaders of American journalism --  
the New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the TV 
networks -- made no mention of drugs in their headlines, although all 
reported the substance of what Bush said on the tapes.

   The Times' story carried the headline "In Secretly Taped Conversations, 
Glimpses of the Future President" and mentioned marijuana in the third 
paragraph. The Post followed up the next day with "Secret Tapes Not Meant to 
Harm, Writer Says." Bush's drug comments were mentioned in the fifth 
paragraph of The Post story. Among national U.S. news outlets, only 
ABCNews.com used the M-word in a headline declaring, "New Tapes Say Bush May 
Have Smoked Marijuana."



-- 
"But to live outside the law, you must be honest"
Bob Dylan - Absolutely Sweet Marie - 1966