"Penal Code Lite"

He won't say whether he used cocaine in the early 1970s.

He can't expain gaps in his service record in 1972. He missed an Air Guard medical exam/drug test in 1972. He was grounded by the Air Guard in 1972. He suddenly, uncharacteristically performed charity work in inner-city Houston in 1972. His press secretary refuses to say if Bush performed court-ordered community service in 1972 and says it is "gutter politics" to even ask the question.

If he got caught possessing cocaine in 1972, I could give a rat's whisker. But what he did afterward matters.

From "The real Bush drug scandal" in Salon, Sept. 1999:

As has been well documented, Gov. Bush refuses to discuss his possible past drug use, but he is not shy in championing some of the harshest drug laws in the country against kids who come from neighborhoods like the Bottoms. Under the previous Texas governor, Ann Richards, first-time offenders received automatic probation with drug counseling; when he ran against her, candidate Bush ridiculed this approach, calling it 'Penal Code Lite.'

Once he was in office, Bush signed a law ending such foolishness. Now, recreational users, first time offenders and even those caught with less than a gram face jail time: six months to two years.

If Bush did the same thing and got a secretly administered community-service sentence arranged by his powerful father instead of jail, he has a lot to answer for.