DWI blog - Bush's Secret Strategy

George W. Bush long has tried to avoid questions about the days when, as he puts it, "I was young and irresponsible." Before last week one of his closest shaves came in September 1996, when he was called for jury duty in the Travis County Court of Law--a jurisdiction with a heavy docket of DWI cases. Bush suggested he was raring to go. "If you're going to live in a democracy... you need to participate," he told reporters.

Privately, Bush's legal team was worried. A few days before his appearance, NEWSWEEK has learned, staffer Patricia McDaniel was called to a meeting with Bush's chief counsel, Al Gonzales. What sort of questions would Bush face as a potential juror, he wanted to know. McDaniel had worked for years as a defense lawyer on DWI cases. In court papers filed in an unrelated case last year, McDaniel said she was ...