http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-seery/the-bush-cocaine-chronicl_b_37786.html The Bush Cocaine Chronicles: Complicity and Cover-up Fox News Reporter Kirian Chetry blurted out what she assumed was common knowledge among the media cognoscenti: that George W. Bush had used cocaine in his past and yet had politically survived the exposure of that (criminal) indiscretion. Her on-air colleagues scrambled to "correct" the record: no, no, no, the cocaine accusations against Bush have never been proven beyond a doubt--so let's quickly shift the conversation away from Bush's drug past and instead bring up, for one more go around, Bill Clinton's admitted marijuana use alongside the recent revelation about Barack Obama's possible cocaine use. Let's blow some smoke in Bill's direction, he never inhaled, ha, ha, ha. Whew, that was a close one! Fox News surely didn't want to open that door into Bush's creepy closet, and they tried to slam it shut. Maybe the stress of the Iraq War, compounded by the growing abundance of Afghani poppy plants, is triggering memory flashbacks. Whatever the reason, the "cocaine issue" is back in the news--it just won't go away. What amazes me is that here we are, six years into Bush's presidency, and the press still refuses to treat the longstanding stories about Bush's cocaine use with the severity and scrutiny that such charges surely deserve, given the high level stakes involved. The issue is no longer simply how and why Bush has successfully dodged the topic for his entire political career. The story now should be why the press has treated him with kid gloves for so long. On one part of this story, Bush's record is perfectly clear: in every political campaign he has ever waged, he has skillfully evaded "the cocaine question," probably in much the same way that he avoided appearing for his drug test while serving in the National Guard. We've seen this character defect of his more recently: namely, all the lies and evasions and slipperiness that have contributed to, and culminated in the calamity that is the Iraq War. But Bush's character defect was there all along to see for anyone who wanted to take a good look at it. The U.S. press corps evidently decided, however, simply to look the other way. I speak from first hand experience, an insider's vantage, on this particular issue. Several weeks before the 2000 election, I submitted to the Los Angeles Times an op-ed piece about the charges swirling around Bush's alleged cocaine use. The next day the Times Opinion Section editors left lengthy telephone messages on both my home and office message machines: Yes, they wanted this piece very much. Yes, they were going to publish it in the next Monday edition. It was a definite go, not just an acceptance for the "queue." Come Sunday, however, I received another call: It turns out, er, we won't be using it now, not at all. No explanation beyond that. Gads, I thought. That was a dramatic 180-degree turnaround. I've never received a personal call at my home for a rejection. Someone clearly had put the kibosh on the story, overruling or prevailing upon those who once had been very keen about and committed to the piece. Read it for yourself--I reproduce it below. Jonathan Singer, now with myDD.com, reprised the piece on his own blog in September of 2004, at a time when the cocaine issue had once again become current with the publication of Kitty Kelley's The Family, which included the shocking charge that George W. Bush had used cocaine at Camp David during his father's presidential term, i.e., past George W. Bush's 40th birthday. Did the press (let alone the Justice Department) investigate these allegations as diligently and as tenaciously as they probed into Whitewater or Monica-gate? In hindsight, knowing what we now know, imagine if the media had given the Bush cocaine issue its due in the fall of 2000. What if our national press editors and media pundits had insisted that Bush give a clear and candid answer to the cocaine issue before the 2000 presidential election? You know what I'm getting at. It doesn't take a leap of brilliance to fill in the blanks. To wit: Our nation would be much better off today if members of the mainstream media had simply done their job on that score, rather than abdicating their vigilance for the sake of decorum. How much responsibility should they bear today for our current state of affairs? You decide--I'd like to hear your responses.