EDITORIAL : DRUG WAR OF WORDS; BUSH WON'T ANSWER A BASIC QUESTION ON WHETHER HE ABUSED COCAINE IN THE PAST.

HERE we go again. George W. Bush is playing word games - Bill Clinton-like word games - over whether he used cocaine as a young man.

The verbal evasions and tricky tactics didn't work for Clinton, who will always be mocked for insisting he smoked marijuana but didn't inhale and for his tortuous definition of sex.

And it won't work for George W.

First, Bush refused to answer the question. Now he's getting cagey. He first said Thursday he could have passed stringent background checks for illegal drug use when his father was president, from 1989 to 1993. Later in the day, he abandoned the dodge and said he has not used illegal drugs in the past 25 years.

But his answer was so contorted, it raised even more questions.

How many times do we have to say it? The issue is character.

People make mistakes. We all do. And hopefully, we learn from them and we mature as adults.

People of great character have made great mistakes. But what makes them great is their ability to own up to their frailties, to express remorse and to move on with life.

People of weak character dodge the question, extend the pain, get caught up in verbal word games.

Why is it so hard for people to tell the truth?

It's silly of Bush to think that by evading or giving contorted technical answers, the issue will go away.

It won't. It's all over the TV political shows. It will become the latest expose by tabloids, which will pay fortunes for lies if they can't buy the truth.

The voting public is made up of grownups who, presumably, have messed up themselves and paid the price of their indiscretions. They do not expect less of their leaders than they do of themselves.

Obviously, Bush already knows he has latitude to confess mistakes, or he wouldn't have volunteered he was a boozer who quit years ago. And he claims he's been faithful to his wife, Laura, although nobody asked him about that.

But when pressed on whether he snorted cocaine, he becomes indignant, slamming the politics of personal destruction, which was so finely honed by Republicans during the impeachment process as they labored to uncover the specifics of every intimate and disgusting sexual act performed by or on Clinton.

So just come clean, George W.

You're the only candidate, Republican or Democrat, not to answer the question. It doesn't look good. It makes people think you did something they wouldn't forgive.

After the agony of the Clinton presidency, character counts more than ever. It would be wonderful to have a candidate who has it.

And if you persist in playing coy and being offended by being examined under a microscope, then in the words of sage politician Harry Truman, get out of the kitchen if you can't stand the heat.

We're talking about the presidency of the United States, the most powerful person on the face of the Earth.

Courage, strength of character and honesty count more than anything else.

Just tell us the truth. The whole truth.