The Scriptorium

The media has a fresh, new “scandal” involving President George W. Bush — the “Bush tapes.” The tapes consist of tape-recorded phone conversations between then-Governor Bush and family “friend” Doug Wead between 1998 and 2000. Why did Wead betray his friend like this? By his own admission – a book deal! So the money-hungry “friend” of the Bush’s released some of the tapes to a publisher, and the New York Times (long a bastion for unbiased reporting…yeah, right) gets wind of the tapes and goes to press.

A few Democrats find the information in the tapes so damaging that they’re ebullient at this “scandal” hitting their favorite nemesis. So exactly what are the damaging contents in this tapes? Let’s look at what the shocking tapes reveal.

On one tape, Mr. Bush explains that he told one prominent evangelical that he would not “kick gays, because I’m a sinner. How can I differentiate sin?”

GASP!! The Democrats believe this quote will hurt President Bush’ reputation among his base. They believe all conservatives want him to “kick gays.” They don’t understand there’s a difference between not catering to the homosexual agenda and beatin’ down the gays. President Bush has long held that a federal marriage amendment should be a last resort, but he would sign one into law if it was sent to him. What this quote reveals is that President Bush holds no special antipathy for one group of sinners. Note that the quote DOES reveal that Bush believes homosexuality to be a sin. Hmm… this quote is going nowhere. So what else do we have?

Mr. Bush has some tough words for his Democratic rivals, calling Al Gore “pathologically a liar” and saying President Clinton had “disgraced the nation.”

Hmm… this is definitely earth-shattering. Perhaps we should string him up for believing the earth is round as well! Next!

Mr. Bush also criticizes then-Vice President Gore for admitting marijuana use and explains why he would not do the same.

“I wouldn’t answer the marijuana questions,” he said, according to the Times. “You know why? Because I don’t want some little kid doing what I tried.”

Democrats and the MSM have interpreted this as Bush “all but admitting prior drug use.” Even if this interpretation is correct, it’s not exactly news. President Bush has previously admitted living a wild life as a youth that is known to have included drug use. That’s why his acceptance of Christ was such a life-changing event for him. Many have decried the President’s former alcohol and drug abuse, as well as his involvement in Skull and Bones. What they fail to allow is that this all occurred before he became born again. God changes lives. Do these people reject the concept of repentance and forgiveness? Apparently so. Anything else?

But he also described “the five turning points in my life. Accepting Christ. Marrying my wife. Having children. Running for governor. And listening to my mother.”

The scum!! What terrible things to have done! Accepting Christ, getting married, having children, running for Governor, and listening to his mother should have done NOTHING to change his life!

While some Democrats are making hay out of this, most are not. Even those in the tinfoil hat brigade (AKA Democraticunderground.com), are not seeing this tapes as being any big deal. This came as a terrible disappointment to me, who wanted to see their paranoid rants on this. However, I was not totally disappointed, as some believe these tapes were actually released by the White House’s Karl Rove in an attempt to distract the media. One poster on DU found allies to support his belief that…

This “revelation” is a Rovian distraction from the real issue: someone in the White House got his rent-a-boyfriend Gannon/Guckert past security on a daily basis for almost TWO years.

Well, there is one point on which the bulk of the DU’ers and I agree — these tapes are a non-issue to ANYONE outside the MSM. While I too am bored with the Michael Jackson trial analysis, this story just doesn’t have the legs to supplant that.