Bush's house turns out to be rather glassy
 by  Bob Ray Sanders

From the time he first ran for governor of Texas, there have been three
obvious characteristics of a George W. Bush campaign.

Each has been carefully controlled, extremely calculated and keenly evasive
of personal issues that would be harmful to a candidate who had only admitted
making "mistakes" in his youth and having a "drinking problem" when he was young.

The revelation this past week that Bush was arrested for DUI  24 years ago in Maine
will be blamed on many people except the one who is truly responsible: Bush himself.
The timing of this embarrassing and perhaps vote-costing negative news must be laid
squarely at Bush's feet.

He could have avoided it by telling Texans in 1994 and the American people in 1998
or 1999 the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Instead, he lied. Yes, that's the word I intended to use.

His omission, and the attempt by him or someone on his behalf to keep the record of
his arrest hidden, makes him less than truthful. And as my daddy would say, "That's a liar."

The record of Bush's DUI arrest was expunged in 1993. Ironically, that was the year
that Bush decided to run against Gov. Ann Richards.

The governor decided in his first race for the statehouse -- and has carried it through the
presidential campaign -- that there were certain issues that he simply would not talk about.
He was not going to answer questions about whether he had ever done anything illegal.

Bush became a master of evasion, skating most of the those questions about "youthful indiscretions."
For the most part, the media allowed him to get away with it.

If Bush had told us the truth before he ran for either office, I would be among the first
to say that something he did 24 years should not be an issue in the campaign.
But contrary to the statements of his campaign workers during the past few days,
he has not been forthright on his drinking problem.

On Friday, there was a report from `The Dallas Morning News' -- disputed by the Bush
campaign -- that when Bush was asked point-blank if he had ever had any other arrest
since 1968 (when he was charged with disorderly conduct), Bush replied, "No."
We know now that was a lie.

Furthermore, it is hypocritical for the governor to question the character and integrity
of someone else while refusing to be totally honest about things that would call his
own character into question.

The thing that irritates me the most, however, is Bush's heavy-handedness when dealing
with youthful defenders today, when he knows full well that he got by much of his life
without having to be accountable for some of his misdeeds, or mistakes.

In 1994, Bush campaigned on a platform of getting tough on juveniles.
He promised that if a kid was old enough to do the crime,
then he was old enough to do the time.

Based on some of his TV commercials in his second campaign, the governor was proud of
the fact that Texas had put more juveniles in the criminal justice system under his administration.

I don't know how the DUI news will effect Bush's chances to win the presidency.
I do know that it has put the Bush campaign on the defensive and is still a major
distraction just two days before the election.

Some voters have to wonder if there are other things we don't know about,
and whether Bush should be careful when questioning the truthfulness of Gore.

They will be listening carefully to every word the governor says. And every time that
Bush attempts to sully the name or question the integrity of Gore, there will be those
thinking about stone-throwers living in glass houses.

Maybe that little bit of doubt will be all that's needed to tilt the election in Gore's direction.
If that happens, Bush will have no one to blame but Bush.