Winning Words: George Lakoff says Environmentalists need to watch their Langauge

By Katy Butler, Sierra Magazine, July/August 2004

It's not for want of solid facts and rational arguments that the environment has lost ground, says cognitive scientist George Lakoff, author of Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, which has become a handbook for embattled progressive strategists. First published in 1996 and recently updated and reissued by the University of Chicago Press, the book argues that our political decisions are not rational, but filtered through unconscious metaphors that shape our thinking about everything from how children should be raised to how nature should be regarded to how the government should be run.

By Katy Butler, Sierra Magazine, July/August 2004

As the presidential election approaches, two insulated, polarized,
and evenly divided Americas - one conservative, one liberal - face each
other with mutual incomprehension. On almost every issue, from
abortion to the war in Iraq, each side can reliably be expected to
vehemently oppose the other.

Environmental protection, which, at least in general terms, more than
75 percent of Americans say they support, is one policy matter that
doesn't obviously bisect voters along conventional political lines.
Even so - and despite a river of facts about everything from melting ice
floes to declining air quality - anti-environmental legislation with
Orwellian titles like the Healthy Forests Restoration Act and Clear
Skies Initiative has made headway in a conservative Congress.

It's not for want of solid facts and rational arguments that the
environment has lost ground, says cognitive scientist George Lakoff,
author of Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, which
has become a handbook for embattled progressive strategists. First
published in 1996 and recently updated and reissued by the University
of Chicago Press, the book argues that our political decisions are not
rational, but filtered through unconscious metaphors that shape our
thinking about everything from how children should be raised to how
nature should be regarded to how the government should be run.

Lakoff, who teaches linguistics at the University of California at
Berkeley, is a specialist in "framing": the way that language shapes
how we think. Most of our political thought, Lakoff argues, is formed
by the metaphor of the nation as a family. Progressives, including
many environmentalists, value an egalitarian "Nurturant Parent" family
that stresses empathy, mutual cooperation, and a sense of
interconnectedness.

Conservatives, on the other hand, idealize a traditional "Strict
Father" family organized by rules, clear hierarchy, obedience, and
discipline. Liberals and conservatives are not so much quibbling over
facts, says Lakoff, but fighting a war of opposing visions rooted in
these divergent images of ideal family life.

Over the past five years, Lakoff has advised dozens of environmental
organizations, including the Sierra Club, on how to effectively
present issues to the public. Sierra interviewed him recently in the
offices of the Rockridge Institute, a small progressive think tank in
Berkeley that he helped found. Wearing dark slacks and a black
turtleneck sweater, Lakoff comes across as professorial, rumpled, and
kind - an embodiment of the nurturing parent "family values" he
unapologetically favors.

- - -

Sierra: What is "framing"?

George Lakoff: Take "tax relief," a phrase used by the current White
House. The word "relief" evokes a conceptual frame of some
affliction - an afflicted party, and a reliever who performs the
action of relieving. So taxes are an affliction, a reliever is a hero,
and anyone who wants to stop him from the relief is a villain. You
have just two words, yet all of that is embedded. If you oppose
reducing taxes and you use that phrase - "tax relief" - you've already
lost.

Sierra: How about "protecting the environment"? Is there a frame
embedded there too?

Lakoff: The image you get is of the environment as something separate
from you. It sounds as if there were this helpless environment out
there and you were the big protector. There's no notion that we owe
our very existence to the environment, and that we are threatening
what gives us life. It assumes that there's an external threat. It
doesn't say that the threat is us.

Environmentalists have adopted a set of frames that doesn't reflect
the vital importance of the environment to everything on Earth. The
term "the environment" suggests that this is an area of life separate
from other areas of life like the economy and jobs, or health, or
foreign policy. By not linking it to everyday issues, it sounds like a
separate category, and a luxury in difficult times. Wilderness: a
place for those in Birkenstocks to go hiking.

Sierra: What's the alternative?

Lakoff: When environmental issues are cast in terms of health and
security, which people already accept as vital and necessary, then the
environment becomes important. It's a health issue - clean air and
clean water have to do with childhood asthma and with dysentery.
Energy that is renewable and sustainable and doesn't pollute - that is
a crucial environmental issue, but it's not just environmentalism. A
crash program to develop alternative energy is a health issue. It's a
foreign policy issue. It's a Third World development issue.

If we developed the technology for alternative energy, we wouldn't be
dependent on Middle East oil. We could then sell or give the
technology to countries around the world, and no country would have to
borrow money from the International Monetary Fund to buy oil and then
owe interest. This would turn Third World countries into energy
producers instead of consumers. And it's a jobs issue because it would
create millions of good jobs in this country. So thinking and talking
about environmentalism in limited terms like preservation of
wilderness is shooting yourself in the foot.

That's why the frame is so important. Most environmentalists believe
that the truth will make you free. So they tell people the raw facts.
But frames trump the facts. Raw facts won't help, except to further
persuade the people who already agree with you.

Sierra: A raw fact like the disappearance of an entire species won't
help?

Lakoff: It won't help with people who are not thinking in terms of
species. Most conservatives aren't.

Sierra: How does this connect with visions of the ideal family? It
seems like a stretch.

Lakoff: Bear with me. We all think metaphorically without knowing it.
We have a basic, unconscious metaphor of the nation as a family. We
send our "sons and daughters to war." We have "founding fathers." It's
such a natural metaphor that you don't even notice it's there. And in
our culture we also have two opposite models of how the family should
be run: a Strict Father model and a Nurturant Parent model. The
metaphor of the nation as family maps the values from those models
onto our politics, creating conservative and liberal wings.

The Strict Father family metaphor - the conservative model - assumes
that the world is a dangerous and difficult place. That is why you
need a strict father who protects the family in the dangerous world,
supports the family in a difficult world, and teaches his kids right
from wrong by punishment. President Bush, for example, began his Meet
the Press interview last spring by saying the world is a dangerous
place and invoking the need for a strong authority. In this worldview,
morality and power are supposed to go together.

Sierra: And now Strict Father values are ascendant politically. Does
this have anything to do with September 11?

Lakoff: September 11 had a major effect. Fear activates the Strict
Father model, because the world is seen as a dangerous place. But
there's more. One of the key organizing principles of this model - and
this impacts environmentalism - is hierarchy: God above man, man above
nature, adults above children, America above other countries, and
Western culture above non-Western culture. When most conservatives
talk about natural resources, they mean resources for human use.
Simply giving them the facts about species destruction won't change
anything. The facts will not overwhelm the frame.

Sierra: And the liberal frame?

Lakoff: Liberal politics is based on a nurturant view of the family.
In this view, both parents are responsible. Their job is to make the
world a better place, and the assumption is that it can become a
better place. Children are born good and can be made better. The
parents' job is to nurture their children through empathy and
responsibility. From those two values all the other progressive values
follow. If you empathize with your child, you want your child to have
a happy, fulfilled life.

Protection follows from this, so you get consumer protection, worker
protection - and environmental protection. Fairness. Fulfillment in
life. In this model, there is a moral responsibility to be a happy,
fulfilled person. Cooperation is a value, as is open, two-way
communication in the family, and in government.

What does all this say about your relationship to nature? The parent
is a nurturer, and so is nature. That means that you have a
responsibility to nature, a moral responsibility.

Sierra: What if you're having Thanksgiving dinner with your Aunt
Mabel, and she says, "What's more important, people or owls?"

Lakoff: If someone is willing to listen to you, you can speak from a
moral perspective, shifting the frame your turf: "Here's how I look at
it. The issue really is the sacredness of species and of these
wondrous parts of the earth. It would be immoral to destroy anything
this remarkable and glorious." That's very different from saying that
the poor owls are dying.

Change the discussion to your frame. The old-growth forest is just one
part of a general understanding of how you should live in the world as
a moral being. You'll get more respect with a moral worldview than by
throwing facts and figures at people and trying to contradict them and
show them that their figures are wrong. Environmentalism has tended to
go scientific. The science is wonderful, but the sacred gets lost.

Sierra: Does conventional religion offer any openings? Lakoff: It's
important to understand the theology behind liberal Christianity.
Liberal Christianity is based on a nurturant morality. Its central
concept is that of grace. You can be filled with grace, it protects
you, heals you, you have to be close to God to get grace. You can't
earn grace, you must accept it. It's metaphorical nurturance. And
there are many more liberal Christians than conservative Christians.

Sierra: So, for example, this forest is a gift from God?

Lakoff: It's not merely a gift from God. The forest is sacred. God in
His grace provided this for us to take care of and protect and pass on
to our children.

Sierra: Won't they just make fun of us, as a bunch of tree huggers?

Lakoff: They might, because we still lack crucial concepts. When
conservatives lost badly in 1964, they realized that they needed to
flesh out the notion of conservatism. They set up think tanks and paid
billions of dollars. Over 30 or 40 years they have pretty much fleshed
out their concepts and gotten language for them. Nice simple language.
Liberals have not done this.

Conservatives will say, "People not owls." And liberals will have to
give four sentences in response. There isn't a fixed frame in people's
brains that they can evoke. But once the concepts are repeated over
and over again and get into the synapses of other people's brains,
conservatives can't make fun of them anymore.

Sierra: How does the White House get away with anti-environmental
legislation with names like Healthy Forests and Clear Skies?

Lakoff: This use of language infuriates liberals. But what they really
ought to ask is, When do conservatives need to use Orwellian language
and why? They use Orwellian language when their positions are weak.

Frank Luntz is a conservative pollster. He is the Republicans'
language man, and he trains influential conservatives to use what he
calls the right words - like "tax relief" or "partial-birth abortion."
They fit in with the rest of the conservative worldview.

In his discussion of global warming, Luntz says that Republicans are
losing on the science. The science is coming out, showing that there
really is global warming. But, he says, we can reclaim victory through
language. He says that when you are talking to environmentalists, use
the words environmentalists like. Healthy, clean, and safe. Even if
you are talking about coal or nuclear power plants. That's Orwellian
language, the opposite of what it says. It is a sign of weakness. And
that weakness can be a matter of public discussion.

Sierra: Let me throw some environmentalist terms at you. What about
"body burden"?

Lakoff: That term is opaque. About a year ago, two groups - Health
Care Without Harm and Commonweal - got a grant from the Centers for
Disease Control and found a shocking number of toxic substances in
healthy people's bodies. They put out the facts about the "body
burden" and they were forgotten in a day. No one understands what a
body burden is. They needed to talk instead about poisons, and to have
a campaign for poison-free bodies, poison-free communities, poison-
free rivers, poison-free cosmetics.

They have to name the poisoners, and build up the frame that there are
corporations who deliberately poison people. There is a book coming
out about Dow Chemical Company, and it's going to be called something
like Toxic Trespass. If it were called Poison Incorporated: How Dow
Gets Under Your Skin - that's my title! - then people would have an
image.

Sierra: That would get people's attention. What else should we keep in
mind?

Lakoff: It's important to use basic terms. The death tax. The marriage
tax. Partial-birth abortion. "Global warming" is the wrong term:
"Warm" seems nice. So people think, "Gee, I like global warming,
Pittsburgh will be warmer." "Climate change" is the attempt to be
scientific and neutral. "Climate crisis" would be a more effective
term. Climate collapse. Carbon dioxide strangulation. Suffocation of
the earth. But it's not easy to change these things once they get into
the vocabulary.

Sierra: I'd like to get your reaction to some terms the Sierra Club is
using. It refers to the "Arctic Refuge" rather than "ANWR" [pronounced
"anwar"] since it conveys the sacred rather than the bureaucratic. The
Club's "End Commercial Logging" campaign has morphed into the "Forest
Protection and Restoration" campaign.

Lakoff: Hooray! Notice why it works. Arguing directly against
something is always a disaster. Take "End Logging." That doesn't say
what you are for.

It's like saying, "Don't think of an elephant." You can't not think of
an elephant. Logging is a masculine activity, and the assumption is
that the logs are going to go into your house - that they are being
logged for you - when the reality is that they mostly go to other
countries.

Sierra: Is this a war between two types of propaganda?

Lakoff: No. Framing can be used for propaganda. But honest framing
effectively expresses what you honestly believe.

Sierra: What's the most important thing we should keep in mind?

Lakoff: Words matter. It is extremely important that people use
language in a powerful way.

- - -

Katy Butler, a San Francisco Bay Area journalist, has written
for the New Yorker, the Washington Post, and the New York Times
Sunday Book Review.

Problems with a Global Flood, 2nd edition

Problems with a Global Flood, 2nd edition

The Hunt Crime Watch Programme

The Hunt Crime Watch Programme


After February 18, hunting and coursing with dogs will be illegal in England and Wales. It will be a wonderful day for our wildlife, and a massive step forwards to the creation of a more humane and decent society.

However, across England and Wales, hunters are planning to continue hunting. Some may be hunting an artificial scent, going 'drag hunting' as we have long urged them to. But others may continue to hunt wild animals, either openly and blatantly, or secretly, blaming "accidents" for the cruel chase and death of our wildlife.

This website explains how you can help the League Against Cruel Sports make sure that the hunting ban is obeyed across our countryside.

HuntCrimeWatch

In Secretly Taped Conversations, Glimpses of the Future President

Doug Wead, an author and former aide to President Bush's father.

February 20, 2005

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

ASHINGTON, Feb. 19 - As George W. Bush was first moving onto the national political stage, he often turned for advice to an old friend who secretly taped some of their private conversations, creating a rare record of the future president as a politician and a personality.

In the last several weeks, that friend, Doug Wead, an author and former aide to Mr. Bush's father, disclosed the tapes' existence to a reporter and played about a dozen of them.

Variously earnest, confident or prickly in those conversations, Mr. Bush weighs the political risks and benefits of his religious faith, discusses campaign strategy and comments on rivals. John McCain "will wear thin," he predicted. John Ashcroft, he confided, would be a "very good Supreme Court pick" or a "fabulous" vice president. And in exchanges about his handling of questions from the news media about his past, Mr. Bush appears to have acknowledged trying marijuana.

Mr. Wead said he recorded the conversations because he viewed Mr. Bush as a historic figure, but he said he knew that the president might regard his actions as a betrayal. As the author of a new book about presidential childhoods, Mr. Wead could benefit from any publicity, but he said that was not a motive in disclosing the tapes.

The White House did not dispute the authenticity of the tapes or respond to their contents. Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, said, "The governor was having casual conversations with someone he believed was his friend." Asked about drug use, Mr. Duffy said, "That has been asked and answered so many times there is nothing more to add."

The conversations Mr. Wead played offer insights into Mr. Bush's thinking from the time he was weighing a run for president in 1998 to shortly before he accepted the Republican nomination in 2000. Mr. Wead had been a liaison to evangelical Protestants for the president's father, and the intersection of religion and politics is a recurring theme in the talks.

Preparing to meet Christian leaders in September 1998, Mr. Bush told Mr. Wead, "As you said, there are some code words. There are some proper ways to say things, and some improper ways." He added, "I am going to say that I've accepted Christ into my life. And that's a true statement."

But Mr. Bush also repeatedly worried that prominent evangelical Christians would not like his refusal "to kick gays." At the same time, he was wary of unnerving secular voters by meeting publicly with evangelical leaders. When he thought his aides had agreed to such a meeting, Mr. Bush complained to Karl Rove, his political strategist, "What the hell is this about?"

Mr. Bush, who has acknowledged a drinking problem years ago, told Mr. Wead on the tapes that he could withstand scrutiny of his past. He said it involved nothing more than "just, you know, wild behavior." He worried, though, that allegations of cocaine use would surface in the campaign, and he blamed his opponents for stirring rumors. "If nobody shows up, there's no story," he told Mr. Wead, "and if somebody shows up, it is going to be made up." But when Mr. Wead said that Mr. Bush had in the past publicly denied using cocaine, Mr. Bush replied, "I haven't denied anything."

He refused to answer reporters' questions about his past behavior, he said, even though it might cost him the election. Defending his approach, Mr. Bush said: "I wouldn't answer the marijuana questions. You know why? Because I don't want some little kid doing what I tried."

He mocked Vice President Al Gore for acknowledging marijuana use. "Baby boomers have got to grow up and say, yeah, I may have done drugs, but instead of admitting it, say to kids, don't do them," he said.

Mr. Bush threatened that if his rival Steve Forbes attacked him too hard during the campaign and won, both Mr. Bush, then the Texas governor, and his brother, Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, would withhold their support. "He can forget Texas. And he can forget Florida. And I will sit on my hands," Mr. Bush said.

The private Mr. Bush sounds remarkably similar in many ways to the public President Bush. Many of the taped comments foreshadow aspects of his presidency, including his opposition to both anti-gay language and recognizing same-sex marriage, his skepticism about the United Nations, his sense of moral purpose and his focus on cultivating conservative Christian voters.

Mr. Wead said he withheld many tapes of conversations that were repetitive or of a purely personal nature. The dozen conversations he agreed to play ranged in length from five minutes to nearly half an hour. In them, the future president affectionately addresses Mr. Wead as "Weadie" or "Weadnik," asks if his children still believe in Santa Claus, and chides him for skipping a doctor's appointment. Mr. Bush also regularly gripes about the barbs of the press and his rivals. And he is cocky at times. "It's me versus the world," he told Mr. Wead. "The good news is, the world is on my side. Or more than half of it."

Other presidents, such as Richard M. Nixon and Lyndon B. Johnson, secretly recorded conversations from the White House. Some former associates of President Bill Clinton taped personal conversations in apparent efforts to embarrass or entrap him. But Mr. Wead's recordings are a rare example of a future president taped at length without his knowledge talking about matters of public interest like his political strategy and priorities.

Mr. Wead first acknowledged the tapes to a reporter in December to defend the accuracy of a passage about Mr. Bush in his new book, "The Raising of a President." He did not mention the tapes in the book or footnotes, saying he drew on them for only one page of the book. He said he never sought to sell or profit from them. He said he made the tapes in states where it was legal to do so with only one party's knowledge.

Mr. Wead eventually agreed to play a dozen tapes on the condition that the names of any private citizens be withheld. The New York Times hired Tom Owen, an expert on audio authentication, to examine samples from the tapes. He concluded the voice was that of the president.

A White House adviser to the first President Bush, Mr. Wead said in an interview in The Washington Post in 1990 that Andrew H. Card Jr., then deputy chief of staff, told him to leave the administration "sooner rather than later" after he sent conservatives a letter faulting the White House for inviting gay activists to an event. But Mr. Wead said he left on good terms. He never had a formal role in the current president's campaign, though the tapes suggest he had angled for one.

Mr. Wead said he admired George W. Bush and stayed in touch with some members of his family. While he said he has not communicated with the president since early in his first term, he attributed that to Mr. Bush's busy schedule.

Mr. Wead said he recorded his conversations with the president in part because he thought he might be asked to write a book for the campaign. He also wanted a clear account of any requests Mr. Bush made of him. But he said his main motivation in making the tapes, which he originally intended to be released only after his own death, was to leave the nation a unique record of Mr. Bush.

"I believe that, like him or not, he is going to be a huge historical figure," Mr. Wead said. "If I was on the telephone with Churchill or Gandhi, I would tape record them too."

Summer of 1998

The first of the taped conversations Mr. Wead disclosed took place in the summer of 1998, when Mr. Bush was running for his second term as Texas governor. At the time, Mr. Bush was considered a political moderate who worked well with Democrats and was widely admired by Texans of both parties. His family name made him a strong presidential contender, but he had not yet committed to run.

Still, in a conversation that November on the eve of Mr. Bush's re-election, his confidence was soaring. "I believe tomorrow is going to change Texas politics forever," he told Mr. Wead. "The top three offices right below me will be the first time there has been a Republican in that slot since the Civil War. Isn't that amazing? And I hate to be a braggart, but they are going to win for one reason: me."

Talking to Mr. Wead, a former Assemblies of God minister who was well connected in conservative evangelical circles, Mr. Bush's biggest concern about the Republican presidential primary was shoring up his right flank. Mr. Forbes was working hard to win the support of conservative Christians by emphasizing his opposition to abortion. "I view him as a problem, don't you?" Mr. Bush asked.

Mr. Bush knew that his own religious faith could be an asset with conservative Christian voters, and his personal devotion was often evident in the taped conversations. When Mr. Wead warned him that "power corrupts," for example, Mr. Bush told him not to worry: "I have got a great wife. And I read the Bible daily. The Bible is pretty good about keeping your ego in check."

In November 1999, he told his friend that he had been deeply moved by a memorial service for students who died in an accident when constructing a Thanksgiving weekend bonfire at Texas A & M University, especially by the prayers by friends of the students.

In another conversation, he described a "powerful moment" visiting the site of the Sermon on the Mount in Israel with a group of state governors, where he read "Amazing Grace" aloud. "I look forward to sharing this at some point in time," he told Mr. Wead about the event.

Preparing to meet with influential Christian conservatives, Mr. Bush tested his lines with Mr. Wead. "I'm going to tell them the five turning points in my life," he said. "Accepting Christ. Marrying my wife. Having children. Running for governor. And listening to my mother."

In September 1998, Mr. Bush told Mr. Wead that he was getting ready for his first meeting with James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, an evangelical self-help group. Dr. Dobson, probably the most influential evangelical conservative, wanted to examine the candidate's Christian credentials.

"He said he would like to meet me, you know, he had heard some nice things, you know, well, 'I don't know if he is a true believer' kind of attitude," Mr. Bush said.

Mr. Bush said he intended to reassure Dr. Dobson of his opposition to abortion. Mr. Bush said he was concerned about rumors that Dr. Dobson had been telling others that the "Bushes weren't going to be involved in abortion," meaning that the Bush family preferred to avoid the issue rather than fight over it.

"I just don't believe I said that. Why would I have said that?" Mr. Bush told Mr. Wead with annoyance.

By the end of the primary, Mr. Bush alluded to Dr. Dobson's strong views on abortion again, apparently ruling out potential vice presidents including Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania and Gen. Colin L. Powell, who favored abortion rights. Picking any of them could turn conservative Christians away from the ticket, Mr. Bush said.

"They are not going to like it anyway, boy," Mr. Bush said. "Dobson made it clear."

Signs of Concern

Early on, though, Mr. Bush appeared most worried that Christian conservatives would object to his determination not to criticize gay people. "I think he wants me to attack homosexuals," Mr. Bush said after meeting James Robison, a prominent evangelical minister in Texas.

But Mr. Bush said he did not intend to change his position. He said he told Mr. Robison: "Look, James, I got to tell you two things right off the bat. One, I'm not going to kick gays, because I'm a sinner. How can I differentiate sin?"

Later, he read aloud an aide's report from a convention of the Christian Coalition, a conservative political group: "This crowd uses gays as the enemy. It's hard to distinguish between fear of the homosexual political agenda and fear of homosexuality, however."

"This is an issue I have been trying to downplay," Mr. Bush said. "I think it is bad for Republicans to be kicking gays."

Told that one conservative supporter was saying Mr. Bush had pledged not to hire gay people, Mr. Bush said sharply: "No, what I said was, I wouldn't fire gays."

As early as 1998, however, Mr. Bush had already identified one gay-rights issue where he found common ground with conservative Christians: same-sex marriage. "Gay marriage, I am against that. Special rights, I am against that," Mr. Bush told Mr. Wead, five years before a Massachusetts court brought the issue to national attention.

Mr. Bush took stock of conservative Christian views of foreign policy as well. Reading more of the report from the Christian Coalition meeting, Mr. Bush said to Mr. Wead: "Sovereignty. The issue is huge. The mere mention of Kofi Annan in the U.N. caused the crowd to go into a veritable fit. The coalition wants America strong and wants the American flag flying overseas, not the pale blue of the U.N."

As eager as Mr. Bush was to cultivate the support of Christian conservatives, he did not want to do it too publicly for fear of driving away more secular voters. When Mr. Wead warned Mr. Bush to avoid big meetings with evangelical leaders, Mr. Bush said, "I'm just going to have one," and, "This is not meant to be public."

Past Behavior

Many of the taped conversations revolve around Mr. Bush's handling of questions about his past behavior. In August 1998, he worried that the scandals of the Clinton administration had sharpened journalists' determination to investigate the private lives of candidates. He even expressed a hint of sympathy for his Democratic predecessor.

"I don't like it either," Mr. Bush said of the Clinton investigations. "But on the other hand, I think he has disgraced the nation."

When Mr. Wead warned that he had heard reporters talking about Mr. Bush's "immature" past, Mr. Bush said, "That's part of my schtick, which is, look, we have all made mistakes."

He said he learned "a couple of really good lines" from Mr. Robison, the Texas pastor: "What you need to say time and time again is not talk about the details of your transgressions but talk about what I have learned. I've sinned and I've learned."

"I said, 'James' - he stopped - I said, 'I did some things when I was young that were immature,' " Mr. Bush said. "He said, 'But have you learned?' I said, 'James, that's the difference between me and the president. I've learned. I am prepared to accept the responsibility of this office.' "By the summer of 1999, Mr. Bush was telling Mr. Wead his approach to such prying questions had evolved. "I think it is time for somebody to just draw the line and look people in the eye and say, I am not going to participate in ugly rumors about me, and blame my opponents, and hold the line, and stand up for a system that will not allow this kind of crap to go on."

Later, however, Mr. Bush worried that his refusal to answer questions about whether he had used illegal drugs in the past could prove costly, but he held out nonetheless. "I am just not going to answer those questions. And it might cost me the election," he told Mr. Wead.

He complained repeatedly about the press scrutiny, accusing the news media of a "campaign" against him. While he talked of certain reporters as "pro-Bush" and commented favorably on some publications (U.S. News & World Report is "halfway decent," but Time magazine is "awful"), he vented frequently to Mr. Wead about what he considered the liberal bias and invasiveness of the news media in general.

"It's unbelievable," Mr. Bush said, reciting various rumors about his past that his aides had picked up from reporters. "They just float sewer out there."

Mr. Bush bristled at even an implicit aspersion on his past behavior from Dan Quayle, the former vice president and a rival candidate.

"He's gone ugly on me, man," Mr. Bush told Mr. Wead. Mr. Bush quoted Mr. Quayle as saying, "I'm proud of what I did before 40."

"As if I am not!" Mr. Bush said.

Sizing Up Opponents

During the primary contest, Mr. Bush often sized up his dozen Republican rivals, assessing their appeal to conservative Christian voters, their treatment of him and their prospects of serving in a future Bush administration. He paid particular attention to Senator John Ashcroft. "I like Ashcroft a lot," he told Mr. Wead in November 1998. "He is a competent man. He would be a good Supreme Court pick. He would be a good attorney general. He would be a good vice president."

When Mr. Wead predicted an uproar if Mr. Ashcroft were appointed to the court because of his conservative religious views, Mr. Bush replied, "Well, tough."

While Mr. Bush thought the conservative Christian candidates Gary L. Bauer and Alan Keyes would probably scare away moderates, he saw Mr. Ashcroft as an ally because he would draw evangelical voters into the race.

"I want Ashcroft to stay in there, and I want him to be very strong," Mr. Bush said. " I would love it to be a Bush-Ashcroft race. Only because I respect him. He wouldn't say ugly things about me. And I damn sure wouldn't say ugly things about him."

But Mr. Bush was sharply critical of Mr. Forbes, another son of privilege with a famous last name. Evangelicals were not going to like him, Mr. Bush said. "He's too preppy," Mr. Bush said, calling Mr. Forbes "mean spirited."

Recalling the bruising primary fight Mr. Forbes waged against Bob Dole in 1996, Mr. Bush told Mr. Wead, "Steve Forbes is going to hear this message from me. I will do nothing for him if he does to me what he did to Dole. Period. There is going to be a consequence. He is not dealing with the average, you know, 'Oh gosh, let's all get together after it's over.' I will promise you, I will not help him. I don't care."

Another time, Mr. Bush discussed offering Mr. Forbes a job as economic adviser or even secretary of commerce, if Mr. Forbes would approach him first.

Mr. Bush's political predictions were not always on the mark. Before the New Hampshire primary, Mr. Bush all but dismissed Senator John McCain, who turned out to be his strongest challenger.

"He's going to wear very thin when it is all said and done," he said.

When Mr. Wead suggested in June 2000 that Mr. McCain's popularity with Democrats and moderate voters might make him a strong vice presidential candidate, Mr. Bush almost laughed. "Oh, come on!" He added, "I don't know if he helps us win."

Mr. Bush could hardly contain his disdain for Mr. Gore, his Democratic opponent, at one point calling him "pathologically a liar." His confidence in the moral purpose of his campaign to usher in "a responsibility era" never wavered, but he acknowledged that winning might require hard jabs. "I may have to get a little rough for a while," he told Mr. Wead, "but that is what the old man had to do with Dukakis, remember?"

For his part, Mr. Wead said what was most resonant about the conversations with Mr. Bush was his concern that his past behavior might come back to haunt him. Mr. Wead said he used the tapes for his book because Mr. Bush's life so clearly fit his thesis: that presidents often grow up overshadowed by another sibling.

"What I saw in George W. Bush is that he purposefully put himself in the shadows by his irresponsible behavior as a young person," Mr. Wead said. That enabled him to come into his own outside the glare of his parents' expectations, Mr. Wead said.

Why disclose the tapes? "I just felt that the historical point I was making trumped a personal relationship," Mr. Wead said. Asked about consequences, Mr. Wead said, "I'll always be friendly toward him."

New Tapes Say Bush May Have Smoked Marijuana

Sun Feb 20, 2005 03:04 PM ET

By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush indicated in secretly taped interviews he once used marijuana but would not admit it for fear of setting a bad example for children.

Portions of the tapes, recorded from 1998 to 2000 by author Doug Wead without Bush's knowledge, were aired on ABC News on Sunday and published by The New York Times. Their authenticity was verified by the media outlets but has not been independently checked by Reuters.

"I wouldn't answer the marijuana question. You know why? Because I don't want some little kid doing what I tried," Bush purportedly says on the tape.

He added: "But you got to understand, I want to be president. I want to lead. I want to set -- Do you want your little kid say, 'Hey, Daddy, President Bush tried marijuana, I think I will?"'

In the tape, Bush mocks former Vice President Al Gore -- who fought him for the presidency in 2000 -- for admitting he smoked marijuana.

White House officials did not dispute the tapes' veracity and indicated the president was disappointed by their release.

"These were casual conversations with someone he (Bush) believed was his friend," White House spokesman Ken Lisaius said.

Wead, a former aide to Bush's father President George H.W. Bush, released portions of the tapes to coincide with the publication of his new book and told ABC he made the tapes because he believed the president was an historic figure.

"If I'd had a chance to tape record Gandhi or had conversations with Churchill, I probably would have recorded them too," he said.

He also insisted his goal was not to hurt the president's credibility and said if this were the case he would have released the tapes during the 2004 election campaign.

Asked about the tapes in an interview with CNN, the president's father said he was not aware of them and declined comment.

Sitting next to Bush was ex-President Bill Clinton, who admitted to smoking marijuana when he campaigned for the White House but said he never inhaled the illegal drug.

The two former presidents are touring areas affected by the Dec. 26 Indian Ocean tsunami.