A Grammy Award-winning rapper and music producer originally sentenced to 14 years in prison for smuggling cocaine is one of 16 people receiving pardons or reduced sentences from President Bush.
John Edward Forte of North Brunswick, N.J., a graduate of the elite Phillips Exeter Academy prep school who later became a producer for the rap group The Fugees and released two albums on his own, was caught in 2000 at Newark International Airport with two briefcases filled with $1.4 million worth of liquid cocaine, according to court documents.
Forte, 33, a first-time offender, was convicted of possessing the 31 pounds of cocaine with intent to distribute and was sentenced to a minimum of 14 years at Fort Dix, N.J. (Forte's Web site)
With the commutation, Forte will be released Dec. 22, after serving just over seven years. He still faces five years of supervised probation.
Among vocal advocates on Forte's behalf have been singer Carly Simon, along with her son James, and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).
A song off of Forte's 1998 album:
"Now is the perfect opportunity for John to be given the chance to provide positive benefits to society through his considerable musical talents," Hatch wrote to Bush in a January 2007 letter.
Forte was one of two inmates who received reduced sentences. He pardoned 14 others.
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Police say a man named God was arrested near a Tampa church for selling cocaine. Authorities began investigating God Lucky Howard in April, and he was arrested on Saturday. Police say he sold the cocaine to undercover detectives in his neighborhood. When officers searched his home, they reported finding another 22 grams of cocaine and a scale.
Jail records show Howard was charged with several counts drug possession and distribution, which include increased charges for being within 1,000 feet of a church, a school and public housing.
David Paterson is still adding to his string of confessions (following his recent confession of marital affairs).
“I tried it a couple of times,” he said in an interview with NY1 News, when asked if he had ever used cocaine.
It was his first television interview since he became governor last week.
Host Dominic Carter asked Paterson a number of questions about past drug use. The governor also admitted he has used marijuana, but added that he has not touched illegal drugs since his early twenties.
Carter asked a similar series of questions during the 2006 gubernatorial campaign. Both Eliot Spitzer and Tom Suozzi said they had tried marijuana.
Paterson told Carter he spoke publicly about past drug use when he was Spitzer's runningmate in 2006.
Here's the exchange:
Dominic Carter: You have?
David Paterson: Yes
Dominic Carter: Marijuana?
David Paterson: Yes
Dominic Carter: Cocaine?
David Paterson: Yes
Dominic Carter: You used cocaine governor?
David Paterson: I'd say I was 22 or 23, I tried it a couple of times, yes.
Dominic Carter: When is the last time that -- is that the only time you've tried cocaine, governor?
David Paterson: Yeah, around that time, a couple of times and marijuana, probably, when I was about 20. I don't think I've touched marijuana since the late 70s.
Yesterday, following a press briefing on the subject of teen drug abuse, President Bush reminisced about his love/hate relationship with alcohol back in the 70's and 80's. Moved by the plight of a young, drug-addicted girl, the president offered words born of his personal battle with booze:
"Your president made the same kind of choice," he told her. "I had to quit drinking. ... Addiction competes for your affection ... You fall in love with alcohol."
Following the event, Bush granted ABC News an interview, and continued to muse about the nature of his entanglement as well as his decision to go cold turkey.
"I wasn't a knee walking drunk," Bush said. "It's a difficult thing to do, which is to kick an addiction."
... Bush said in his case, he made the decision to quit when he realized drinking was interfering with his family. "Alcohol can compete with your affections. It sure did in my case," Bush said, "affections with your family, or affections for exercise. It was the competition that I decided just wasn't worth it."
Framing his drinking in terms of addiction is something new for the president. In the run-up to the 2000 election, faced with unearthed stories of a 1976 DUI arrest, Bush described his past behavior this way:
"Well, I don't think I had an addiction. You know it's hard for me to say. I've had friends who were, you know, very addicted... and they required hitting bottom [to start] going to A.A. I don't think that was my case."
Perhaps he's just older and wiser now, and can distinguish one too many hangovers from a larger, more worrisome pattern. What rings true, however--for anyone who has ever personally gone through addiction, or watched a loved one suffer its throes--is the couching of alcohol dependency in terms usually reserved for a romantic affair. Type the words "alcohol" and "love affair" into any search engine and see what pops up: a few hundred thousand testimonials written by recovering alcoholics.
Not all substance abuse metaphors are the same, of course. Whereas Mr. Bush's troubles might be likened to ongoing infidelity that threatened his personal relationships (or jogging routine), Barack Obama has known the headlong rush of escapism. His admissions of drug and alcohol use describe not an addiction, per se, as much as a high school brush with a potentially destructive femme fatale. In his book, Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, Obama reflects on where his behavior could have led him:
"Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man. ...I got high [to] push questions of who I was out of my mind."
His admissions of trying pot (and he did inhale) and cocaine (Mr. Bush never would say one way or the other if he had) have caused some to wonder if there's such a thing as being too honest about the past. But therein lies a media double-standard. Tell the nation everything and the press will criticize you for it. Don't and they'll dig it up anyway and call you evasive. Personally, I find both Bush and Obama's disclosures to be refreshing. We all make mistakes, and can be made better for them. In many ways, coming clean about drug and alcohol abuse mirror the admission of a secret love affair. In both matters, honesty is the way to go.
