The Secret Life of Laura Bush

I recently heard that Laura Bush might not be the squeaky-clean God-fearing Republican she appears to be. In her youth, she was in a car accident where she hit and killed her ex-boyfriend in a car accident. Also, she was a marijuana dealer.

I am no fan of the president, but I'm even more against empty rumors. Still, this is not the first time I've heard that our first lady might have a questionable character. During the 2000 election, a work colleague of mine mentioned that Laura Bush was never on the campaign trail because 1) she is not mentally fit top handle the rigors of the job and 2) she nor her husband really wanted W to win the election, but instead they were pressured/forced to be the candidate by circumstance.

Given all this speculations, I decided to spend a rigorous 20 minutes researching the topic while multi-tasking (watching Project Runway). First, I went to Wikipedia, the most reliable news source in the world, and found this line. Makes the accident seem more like a tragic accident in this account.

In 1963 Laura Bush was involved in a fatal car accident when she ran a stop sign and crashed into another car, killing her boyfriend who was driving the car. According to the two-page accident report released by the city of Midland, neither driver was drinking and no charges were filed.

I also found this quote from The Sunday Herald (I never heard of it) from 9/2004 that looks at the president's past. The article relies heavily on the Bush biography The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty by Kitty Kelly, which is very critical to begin with. Written at the height of anti-Bush/pro-John Kerry election propaganda, it should be taken with a heaping tablespoon of salt. The author seems to have turned rumor into truth, something the Republicans have perfected (The insurgency is in its death throws).

There are even claims that First Lady Laura Bush was a drug dealer in her youth...Kelly says she was the “go-to-girl for dime bags” of grass at the Southern Methodist University. “She not only smoked dope but she sold dope.”

Laura was also involved in a car smash that killed a friend when she was 17. The accident happened when she ran through a stop sign in her Chevrolet sedan on a clear night in November 1963, drove into an intersection and struck the Corvair sedan of 17-year-old Michael Douglas. No charges were ever filed.

Laura is also supposed to have had to flee her marital home on a number of occasions because of Bush’s apparently abusive behaviour. However, the police were said to have never been involved.

So what does this tell us? Absolutely nothing. Everyone has secrets and incidents they'd rather forget. But not everyone becomes leader of the free world, so there are good reasons to know more about the past of leaders.

Of course, none of what's written above compares to the past of W himself: drunk driving, calling out his Dad to fight him "mano-a-mano," skipping out on military service during wartime, cocaine, and even an abortion in the 70's - all leading up to the Wgite House. I can't WAIT for that TV movie!