Pubdate: Aug 22, 1999 Source: New York Times (NY) Copyright: 1999 The New York Times Company Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ Forum: http://www10.nytimes.com/comment/ Author: Felicity Barringer WHEN AN OLD DRUG QUESTION BECOMES NEW NEWS Gov. George W. Bush's refusal to give a yes or no answer when asked if he had used cocaine had been old news since his first campaign for governor of Texas in 1994. Then, he rebuffed the question with the words: "What I did as a kid? I don't think it's relevant." There the question and answer stood, basically unchanged, as the Governor rose to national political prominence. He gave the same answer to the New Hampshire station WMUR-TV in February, and to The Washington Post last month. In the meantime, droves of reporters came through Texas and asked questions; to date, none has reported evidence of cocaine use. But in the last three weeks, the alchemy of repetition made the old question new news in some news outlets. On Wednesday and Thursday, Bush made it even newer news by changing his answer. The process highlighted the changed dynamics of political reporting in this Presidential campaign, which is being brought to voters by more news and entertainment outlets than ever before. It also reveals rifts among journalists as they decide what is appropriate to ask, and what is appropriate to publish. A question about possible prior cocaine use "is a fair question to ask," said Richard A. Oppel, the editor of The Austin American-Statesman, in a telephone interview. "But it's also worth asking, 'How many times can you ask the same question without becoming a major part of the story?' " Oppel added: "We should not be part of the story. Where there's a clear fox hunt going on, it raises questions about fairness and the credibility of the press." John F. Stacks, an executive editor of Time magazine, framed the question differently in an essay in this week's issue of the magazine. "It's not hard to comprehend a national disinclination, post-Monica, to paw over the dark moments of yet another politician's life. The problem is that using cocaine, unlike having a bit of sport with the ladies, is illegal, and the country has decided to dole out harsh prison sentences to many people caught with the drug." And, Stacks wrote, "The rationale for probing has only grown easier in this post-ideological period, since so many politicians are essentially saying 'Elect me because I'm the better person.' Is there not then a compelling need to know just how good a person that politician is?" And, several journalists noted in interviews, questions by the news media about rumors about a candidate -- even those planted by the opposition -- take on a new life in the era of the Internet, when widely consulted Web sites like The National Journal's Hotline duly record every question, and late-night joke, about every candidate. The Bush-cocaine question has bounced around Washington and been referred to in The Hotline for months, getting front-page treatment in a Wall Street Journal article in May. The Journal article, which looked at political rumors and how they arise, said there was no evidence that the Governor had used the drug -- which would be illegal in every state. The Journal article documented how far the rumor had spread, and also offered it to a new audience. The cocaine talk continued, but it did not approach critical mass until Aug. 4. That morning, the Senate minority leader, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, was the guest at a regular Washington breakfast for journalists. The subject of media inquiries into private lives was the topic of the day, and Daschle made the point that compared with the treatment journalists had given President Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, Governor Bush was getting off easy. A few minutes later, Daschle was asked if it was legitimate to ask candidates about cocaine use. "It's a legitimate question," he said. At least three reporters came away with the impression that Daschle was challenging the news media to question Bush about cocaine -- although others thought the two comments were unconnected. Daschle himself denied siccing the news media on Governor Bush. But by the time his denial was issued, editors of The Daily News in New York had taken up the challenge. "Daschle threw down the gauntlet," said Debby Krenek, the editor in chief of The News. Shortly after the breakfast, she and other editors had decided to ask all 12 Presidential candidates about cocaine. An article by Timothy J. Burger the next day showed the results: 11 denied it, and Governor Bush held to his old response. The next day, the cocaine question was the centerpiece of the Fox News Channel's public affairs program "Hannity & Colmes," which repeated the question about possible cocaine use three times in teasers before its discussion actually began. Accounts of the Daschle breakfast were published in The Chicago Tribune, The Omaha World-Herald and papers in every large city in Texas. But the evening news broadcasts were leaving the issue alone, as were The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times. The Washington Post had only an Aug. 11 article about the propriety of pressing the cocaine question. Paul Friedman, the executive producer of the ABC News program "World News Tonight," said: "My feeling was there was no proof that the man had used cocaine, there was no evidence, no one was offering any, and that he was within his rights to say, 'I'm not going to talk about that.' He has repeatedly said that campaigns ought to be waged on different ground and that's legitimate." But Stuart Wilk, the managing editor of The Dallas Morning News, warns against limiting the reporters' ability to ask questions. "I don't know that you can ever in mapping out how you're going to cover a campaign say there are some questions we're never going to ask," Wilk said. "Circumstances change and circumstances dictate what questions you are going to ask." For Wilk, the results of The News's question changed the circumstances surrounding the cocaine issue. They changed further in the next 10 days, as Time magazine printed Stacks' essay and The New York Times printed a column by Maureen Dowd pointing out that Bush had opened the door to questions about his personal life by emphasizing his marital fidelity. Ms. Dowd said, "It's hard to believe he would be so coy about cocaine." She wrote, "if he could just say, in a simple declarative sentence, he had never tried it." The Dowd column was printed on Wednesday. About the same time, Wilk said, Scott Parks, a Dallas Morning News reporter, researching a different issue, found out that the F.B.I. asks some Federal appointees about prior drug use during routine background checks. He talked to his colleague Sam Attlesey, and they decided this provided new context for the old question. On that Wednesday, Governor Bush called a news conference in Austin to introduce the new Texas commissioner of education. After fielding questions about education and a political controversy involving the state funeral commission, he called on Reuters's reporter in Austin, Hilary Hylton, who began her question with a reference to the national media's questions about cocaine rumors. Before she could finish, Governor Bush angrily interrupted, saying the rumors were "ridiculous and absurd." He added, "Somebody floats a rumor, and that causes you to ask a question." The outburst made the evening news broadcast on CBS, and made headlines from Atlanta to New York. Then, at a campaign stop later in the day, Attlesey put the question about security clearance to Bush, who said he could get clearance, and had not used cocaine in the last seven years. On Thursday morning, at a campaign stop in Roanoke, Va., Bush expanded the answer to say that he would have gotten a security clearance during his father's Administration, when the standard, Governor Bush said, included the prior 15 years. This was interpreted as a statement that he denied cocaine use from 1974 onward. By Thursday night, "World News Tonight" on ABC and "NBC Nightly News," which had been among the last holdouts on the subject, broadcast accounts of the Governor's new answers to the question. The Los Angeles Times gave the issue front-page display on Friday; The Washington Post gave it top display in an article that referred to the events as the "first crisis" for the Governor's campaign. Jackson Diehl, The Washington Post's assistant managing editor for national news, said on Friday, "No one is applying a standard to Bush that isn't applied to others." The Governor's new answers did not end the questioning, but since Friday he has indicated that he will not elaborate further. And questions about the media's questions also continued. Joseph Lelyveld, the executive editor of The New York Times, said: "We have a duty to report these things. But we don't have a duty, when candidates have given us their answers, to keep hammering on them to give us other answers." Lelyveld added: "There is here the question of who sets the agenda -- the politicians or the press. And I think that's a serious question." Marvin Kalb, executive director of the Washington office of Harvard University's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, said in an interview, "I do not find similar passion to ask about the Governor's position toward Russia, toward the Middle East, toward taxation, toward Social Security." Meanwhile, the rumor mill about Governor Bush continues to churn, with new mechanisms being developed every day. On Thursday, journalists at The Associated Press and The Dallas Morning News received telephone calls purporting to be from a recently appointed political editor at The New York Times. In each case, the caller said that a free-lance journalist was working on an article that would be damaging to Bush, then described the supposed particulars in detail. "He was trying to tell us about the story. He gave me a synopsis of what the story was," said Carole Feldman, the political editor of The Associated Press. She and the reporter for The Morning News contacted The Times, and were told that no such telephone calls had been placed. - --- MAP posted-by: manemez j lovitto