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Three days in Seattle
Bush, Dole and Forbes come to kiss the ring of Republican women in the Emerald City.
By Anthony York
[10/18/99]

How Cindy McCain was outed for drug addiction
When an attempt to get tough with a whistleblower backfired in 1994, the McCain spin machine went into overdrive, and the candidate's wife confessed to problems the media was already poised to reveal.
By Amy Silverman
[10/18/99]

No place like home?
While his campaign is gaining some momentum in places like New Hampshire and South Carolina, Arizona Sen. John McCain is locked in a tough primary fight in his own backyard.
By Mike Murphy
[10/18/99]

An empire after all
Pat Buchanan's book is a loopy and inconsistent piece of Catholic fundamentalism that betrays a weird and self-destructive sympathy for the fascist cause.
By Christopher Hitchens
[10/16/99]

Reform phonies?
Are Democrats conspiring with Republicans to block McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform?
By Jake Tapper
[10/16/99]

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The center's executive director, Madgelean Bush (no relation to George W. Bush), had told Salon News and others that Bush did not do community service there, and the Bush campaign likewise denied the allegation. But the Texas governor had admitted to working at Houston's Project P.U.L.L. in 1972, and Hatfield says he began to wonder if that was actually the community service sentence. Hatfield says he confirmed those suspicions with three sources close to the Bush family he had cultivated while writing his biography, which publishes Wednesday.

Fortunate Son: The Rise of George W. Bush & The Next Generation of Politics By J.H. Hatfield

Bush's campaign denied Hatfield's allegation Monday.

By contrast, "First Son: George W. Bush and the Family Dynasty," by Dallas Morning News reporter Bill Minutaglio, says George Bush Sr. referred his son to Project P.U.L.L. after an incident in which George W. drove drunk with his younger brother Marvin in the car.

But Hatfield quotes "a high-ranking advisor to Bush" who confirmed that Bush was arrested for cocaine possession in Houston in 1972, and had the record expunged by a judge who was "a fellow Republican and elected official" who helped Bush get off "with a little community service at a minority youth center instead of having to pick cotton on a Texas prison farm."

Hatfield quotes a former Yale classmate who told him: "George W. was arrested for possession of cocaine in 1972, but due to his father's connections, the entire record was expunged by a state judge whom the older Bush helped get elected. It was one of those 'behind closed doors in the judges' chambers' kind of thing between the old man and one of his Texas cronies who owed him a favor ... There's only a handful of us that know the truth."

Another source named only as "a longtime Bush friend" described the situation this way: "Say you get a D in algebra ... and now you're going to be required to repeat the class the following year, but your teacher says if you promise to be tutored during the summer by a friend of hers who's good in math, she'll change the D to a C. You spend a few hours a week during the summer vacation learning all about arithmetical operations and relationships, and then the teacher issues you a new report card, replacing the old one on file in the principal's office ... Something akin to that scenario is what happened with Bush in 1972."

Hatfield also says that when he asked Scott McClellan to comment on the allegation of a former Yale classmate of Bush's that the presidential hopeful was arrested for cocaine possession in 1972 and had his record expunged in exchange for community service at Project P.U.L.L., the Bush campaign spokesman said, sotto voce, "Oh, shit," followed by, "No comment."

McClellan denies that the exchange ever occurred. "I never spoke to the guy, and I'm not aware that anyone at the campaign has spoken to him," he told Salon News.

"This guy should have stuck with writing science fiction," said Bush campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker. "He's obviously trying to sell books with something absolutely untrue."

Next page | "Do I know for a fact these allegations are true? No, of course not"