Better that it all comes out up front, per this  Newsday story that New York’s new Governor David Paterson smoked pot and tooted some coke in his misbegotten youth.

I believe that we may have reached the point when Bill Clinton was elected that we came to realize that people coming of age in the 60s and 70s, maybe even the 80s, engaged in illegal drug activities.  Not all, of course.  There will always be a few nerds who were so out of touch, so disconnected to the rest of society, that they behaved themselves in a manner that would make their mother proud.  But these people weren’t, how to say this nicely, normal.

For better or worse, this was the way that normal youth acted in those halcyon days when a new world was dawning and freedom was the predominant interest.  Kids smoked dope.  Not all the time.  Not every day.  But pretty much everybody did it at some point, if only to find out what it was all about if nothing else.  It was pervasive.  It was culturally fundamental. 

The fact that this is a story at all borders on the ludicrous.  How many Newsday reporters over the age of 35 never touched pot or coke?  Yeah, sure, and none of them ever wore Huckapoo shirts either when they went dancing at Studio 54. 

It’s time we started viewing our elected officials from the presumptive position that they did what normal people did when they were young.  And they grew up and got past it.  Talk about the hypocrisy of having used drugs and growing up to put other drug users and sellers in jail all you want.  That’s fair game. 

If you want news about a politician, tell me about the one who grew up during this period and didn’t use drugs.  That guy’s either a freak or a liar.  I’d keep my eye on him.