February 24, 2005 - There is a material difference between the tape recordings that became the stake through Richard Nixon’s political heart and the Bush tapes that seem to confirm the substance abuse rumors that have swirled around the President’s campaigns. The Nixon tapes were made at the then President’s direction as he went about the people’s business. The Nixon tapes were produced by the White House on equipment that belonged to the government. They belonged to the public and it is ironic that the man whose disdain for the rule of law was preserved in them felt restrained by the law and did not destroy them before they were played and finally complied with the Court’s order to reveal them. It is equally ironic that the man whose conversations led to his downfall was fully aware that his incriminating words were being recorded and yet spoke candidly.

The Bush tapes, on the other hand did not record the public’s business. They were made without Mr. Bush knowing that his candid words were being recorded. He was speaking to a person who he thought was a friend from whom he was asking political advice. They were made privately on private equipment by a private individual. That supposed friend claims that he made the tapes of his conversations with George W. Bush to preserve then for history – the same rationale that President Nixon used to create his own tapes. The tapes’ existence came to light as part of a book promotion, not as a result of a court’s order. If the Nixon tapes were a self-inflicted wound then the Bush tapes are a stab in the back.

There is no doubt that future historians would pour over the Bush tapes searching for insights into the character of the President just as historians pour over the Nixon searching for explanations of Mr. Nixon’s flawed character. It is unlikely that they will have that opportunity. Doug Wead, the former Assembly of God minister turned inspirational speaker and author who made the tapes of his conversations with then Governor Bush has announced that he was giving the tapes to the President. The President is under no obligation to preserve the tapes for history and certainly not to make them public. The snippets released by Wead do provide a tantalizing glimpse into the political calculations of an ambitious man, but no new insights into his character. If Wead follows through on his pledge to turn the tapes over to the President we may never know what else they discussed. If the President destroys them, as he would be entitled to do, then history will be the poorer.

We can speculate about what is on the tapes. We can impute motives to Doug Wead’s choice to reveal the existence of the tapes. We can opine that the drama of the tapes is a cleaver ploy to enhance their value to checkbook journalists and when Wead played some selections for the New York Times it amounted to bait. No matter what is going on with the President’s former friend the recordings do represent an important resource for those who would try to understand the process by which George W. Bush became President Bush. It will be a tragedy if future historians are deprived of whatever insights they contain.