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G W Bush, Parent of the Year



 
 
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Old January 8th 04, 10:37 PM
Francois
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Default G W Bush, Parent of the Year

x-no-archive:yes


How ironic that the "immoral" Clintons produced a fine young lady
while the "God is on my side" Bushes have spawned the quintessential
Wild Child.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Jan6.html

washingtonpost.com

Laura's Girls
Mrs. Bush Sought Privacy for Her Twins. They Had Their Own Idea About
What to Do With It.

By Ann Gerhart
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 7, 2004; Page C01

Adapted from "The Perfect Wife: The Life and Choices of Laura Bush," by
Ann Gerhart, published this week by Simon & Schuster

The armored black limousine glides to a stop near a U.S. military jet at
Andrews Air Force Base early one morning in May 2002. Laura Bush is
about to embark on her first solo trip as first lady, a 10-day visit to
three European nations, where she will speak out for Afghan women's rights.

An aide opens the door, and Mrs. Bush slides her legs carefully out and
steps onto the tarmac. By this point, she knows her part well: Pause to
smile, wave and let the photographers dutifully record the image. The
small press corps knows its part, too, and watches the routine preflight
maneuver with no expectations. Suddenly, one leg in worn corduroy, then
the other, swings off the smooth leather limo seat. Jenna Bush stands up
to follow her mother into the plane for this spring fling, and the
reporters go on alert. It's the rowdy twin, the one who has been busted
twice in four weeks for underage drinking, who has run her Secret
Service detail ragged, who was captured in the National Enquirer falling
down, a cigarette in her hand.

The corduroy jeans are ratty at their too-long hems, where Jenna has
ground them into the pavement too many times. She is wearing a short
black T-shirt, and her exposed tummy pooches out over the low-riding
waistband. Flip-flops are on her feet. Her blond hair has been pinned
carelessly up with a plastic clip. Sunglasses cover her eyes. Hoisting a
backpack, she clomps up the plane stairs and disappears.

She hardly looks appropriately presidential daughterly, but then again,
she has time to get herself together before the entourage lands in
Paris, where French and American officials will greet Mrs. Bush and hand
her flowers. The girl is hardly flying coach: Her mother has a
hairdresser and a makeup artist on board the military plane, and there's
a lovely wide bed and full shower.

But upon arrival 71/2 hours later, while her ladylike mother smiles and
embraces the waiting welcomers, Jenna appears at the plane door looking
exactly the same. The flip-flops still on the feet, the belly still
exposed, the hair still not brushed. Suddenly, she darts back inside.
The twin has spied the telephoto lenses of several French photographers
far away, behind a fence. For a few moments, nothing happens, and then
the limousine trunk floats open by electronic remote. A White House
valet retrieves one of Mrs. Bush's Neiman Marcus garment bags, carefully
laid out in the trunk, and he carries it back up the plane's steps. The
reporters watch in wonder. While he holds it aloft, Jenna slips behind
it, and he walks back down the stairs, shielding the first daughter from
the prying eyes of all media, foreign and domestic. Only the top of her
blond head, bobbing up and down, and those flip-flops are visible.

Jenna is hiding, literally, behind her mother's skirts.

There are only two possible explanations for what the reporters have
just witnessed. Either, A) Laura Bush has asked her 20-year-old to
please make herself more presentable, more fitting as a representative
of the United States using taxpayer dollars on an official visit, and
her daughter has adamantly refused, or B) Laura hasn't even bothered to ask.
Blessed Ambivalence

There is plenty that the Bushes don't ask their daughters to do, that
much is clear. They are college seniors now, 22, Jenna an English major
at the University of Texas in Austin, and Barbara, like her father a
Yalie, majoring in humanities. Both are considering graduate school,
their parents say, but not before working first, perhaps as teachers.

Jenna and Barbara have not campaigned or reined in their adolescent
rebellions. They have not appeared engaged in any of the pressing issues
their generation will inherit, nor shown empathy for the struggles
facing their mother and their father, the president of the United
States. They have not treated with respect their Secret Service details,
those highly trained men and women who literally would take a bullet for
them. They don't show their faces at the White House often. So far, they
have shown little inclination to embrace the life of public service
modeled by their parents, uncle and grandparents.

They are girls born rich, blessed with intelligence, good looks, trust
funds, loving parents, boundless opportunities, freedom from many of
life's daily vexing challenges. Yet they persist in seeing themselves as
victims of daddy's job. In this attitude, they have been subtly
encouraged by their mother. Laura Bush would never permit herself to
feel victimized by her husband's decisions. She regards herself as a
full partner who embraced his ambitions because she wanted for him what
he wanted for himself. His happiness has been as important to her as her
own, or greater. No, any victimization she might have felt has all been
transferred onto her girls. Once George sought political office when his
girls were 12, Laura's guiding principle in mothering became "they
didn't really ask for this," as if the life that followed for Jenna and
Barbara was some disastrous, bumpy detour from the normal smooth path
toward adulthood.

"They just want to do like every other teenager does," the first lady
has insisted often. This declaration is dead opposite from most parents'
insistence, which is, of course, "I don't care what the 'other' kids do.
You are not other kids."

Laura Bush left her career as teacher and librarian at 31. By the time
the twins were born in 1981, Laura was 35. The couple hadn't been sure
they would ever be able to have children of their own, and then Laura
nearly lost the babies late in her pregnancy, so she and George felt
doubly blessed. Their gratitude was so deep and persistent that over
time, it seems to have turned into indulgence.
Growing Pains

In many ways, the Bush twins were excellent candidates to make a good
transition to life as children of a political figure. It was the family
business, after all, and the twins' parents entered it only after they
had addressed their concerns about what it would mean for family life,
they told the Dallas Morning News in 1995. "She was the last one to sign
on, the most reluctant," the president said of Laura. "Our girls were so
little," she said. But the timing was good: After their father became
governor, Jenna and Barbara were able to go to high school in the
relatively laid-back town of Austin. By the time their parents landed in
the White House, they were away at college.

When the Bushes first moved from Dallas into the governor's mansion,
Barbara and Jenna went to the private St. Andrew's Episcopal School and
later the public Austin High, and their mother worked hard to integrate
her life as a mother with her duties as first lady. Even as the couple
traveled around the state, Laura insisted that at least she or George be
home by 4 in the afternoon, to help with homework. The four of them ate
dinner together most nights. "You'd see them at back-to-school night,
just like all the other parents, sitting at the student desks in the
classroom," said an Austinite whose kids were friends with the Bush
girls. "It was no big deal. They were just part of the parent population."

There was plenty of staff and few chores. Texas Department of Public
Safety troopers chauffeured the girls to and from school. Laura
recognized she had been deprived of an excellent way to gather teenage
intelligence. Being relieved of driving "is actually a wonderful luxury
for someone who drove 20 carpools a week in Dallas," Laura said. "At the
same time, you learn a lot about your kids when you have them captive in
a car."

In interviews during the gubernatorial years, both Bushes referred again
and again to how embarrassing their children found them. Always, they
seemed to think this was perfectly normal behavior for teenagers.

Every time he went to one of Jenna's volleyball games, the opposing team
would ask for an autograph and picture. "Jenna and Barbara's reaction,
of course, was total humiliation," he said. Laura seemed resigned to
being an object of ridicule for her girls. They made fun of her clothes,
her shoes, her hair. "Mom," they would tell her, "your hair is so stiff
it would stay put in a hurricane."

Rarely were the girls asked to come downstairs and say hello to dinner
guests. "We've been very careful not to make them go to things or be in
the limelight," Laura explained. "At this age, they don't even like to
admit they have parents." Later, during the presidential campaign, Laura
would return to this theme again. The twins were proud of their father,
she said, "and they want him, of course, to do whatever he wants to do,
but at the same time, they want the privacy that I think every senior in
high school wants. You know, most seniors in high school don't want to
even admit they have parents, you know, much less a parent who is a
governor or a presidential candidate."
The Clinton Model

Partly out of respect for their privacy, mostly out of sensitivity
toward their distaste for their dad's high profile, Laura also asked
photographers not to take the twins' pictures. Requests for a family
portrait to illustrate a magazine or newspaper story were routinely
denied. "The girls would be totally humiliated having to do a photo,"
said Laura.

When, at 16, the twins demanded separate cars, their mother assented,
and their father disagreed. "You can share one car," he said, "and learn
to work together." It was one of his rare victories in an attempt to
impose some limitations.

As the family began to discuss whether George should run for president,
the girls were adamant in their opposition. Both would be in college
before the election. They would never have to live in the White House or
attend school in Washington, as Chelsea Clinton had done from age 12.
But that calculus didn't move them. To Jenna and Barbara, it was clear
that their emancipation from the strictures of living at home would
coincide exactly with the arrival of a Secret Service detail to their
college dormitories.

The Bushes were heartened by the way the media had been protective of
Bill and Hillary Clinton's only child. "We felt like the press had given
Chelsea Clinton the opportunity to have privacy, to have a private
life," Laura said. And they determined that they wold not burden their
girls with heavy expectations about their role as Bushes. The only
lesson they wanted to impart to their children, Bush said during the
presidential campaign, was "that I love you. I love you more than
anything. And therefore, you should feel free to fail or succeed, and
you can be anything you want in America."

When inauguration day arrived, Jenna and Barbara dressed to be noticed
in trendy expensive outfits by Texas-born designer Lela Rose and sexy
stiletto-heeled knee-high Jimmy Choo boots. When the moment came for the
actual swearing-in, the 19-year-old girls fidgeted toward the edge of
their chairs, then stood up, unsure how to behave. It fell to President
Clinton, who gave each of them a gentle nudge toward their parents, and
still they stood there, shoulders slumped, looking at their toes.
Finally, their grandmother Barbara Bush, seated behind them, had seen
enough. In one swift, practiced gesture, she reached forward to her
granddaughters, first one, then the other. She put her thumbs between
their shoulder blades and used her fingers to pull their shoulders up
and back. The message was clear: Stand up straight! Remember who you
are! We are Bushes, and Bushes stand up straight.
Agent Provocateurs

The mainstream press honored the administration's request to not pry
into the girls' lives. Their respective campus newspapers primly refused
to cover them. But the tabloids had become intrigued. Jenna and Barbara,
people quickly surmised, were not like the preceding first daughter.

During her years in the White House, rather than fleeing political life,
Chelsea had seized it. She called her father's secretary and asked for a
ticket to his State of the Union address. When her mother embarked on a
tour of the most disadvantaged spots in India and Africa, she wanted to
go along. Chelsea went to parties and drank and had boyfriends just like
many other teenagers -- which is what Jenna and Barbara craved -- but
Chelsea had a gift for keeping her mishaps out of the public eye. She
cultivated the protection and support of other adults in the White
House, and she treated her Secret Service agents with respect.
Accordingly, they were more inclined to protect her when she got herself
in jams.

The twins, meanwhile, seemed to have decided that their agents were
their enemies -- and their chauffeurs, bellhops and valets.

It only took a month after their dad became president for Jenna to land
in the headlines, with news that she had used her Secret Service detail
to spring a male friend from a Texas jail after he was arrested for
public intoxication. The White House refused to comment about the
incident, and so did the Secret Service when a spokesman was asked about
the propriety of using agents to spring drunk kids from the county clink.

It was the first of many conundrums the Bushes would face as their
daughters traversed their last years of being underage. Should they
reveal the particulars of an incident to prove that nothing improper had
happened, or maintain the no-comment policy and allow questions to bloom
into controversy? Within weeks, the National Enquirer had printed a
full-page photo of Jenna laughing and holding a cigarette, crashing to
the floor atop a giggling female friend, and Barbara had given the slip
to her Secret Service detail as she and some fellow Yale students drove
to Manhattan to a World Wrestling Federation match, according to an
article in the Yale magazine Rumpus. Using an electronic pass to go
through a tollbooth, the car in which Barbara was riding then speeded up
and left the agents, who were paying their toll in cash, behind.

Even when Laura was confronted with evidence that her girls were
deliberately and dangerously evasive with their agents, she seemed
unwilling to correct them. The agents were told to back off. The press
was blamed for the reports. The unofficial position was that the twins
were just singled out for unfair attention, even after Jenna was busted
for underage drinking twice in four weeks. That summer of 2001, Jenna
sat in a crowded bar and tried to sweet-talk the bartender into breaking
the law and serving her, but he lost his nerve when he saw the guys with
the earpieces and asked her to leave. Jenna, according to an account in
U.S. News & World Report, was furious. She yelled at her agents, then
fled down a back alley. They gave chase, said the magazine, and when
they caught up with her, she taunted them: "You know if anything happens
to me, my dad would have your ass."

But when she called her father to complain that her detail was
interfering with her drinking, he sided with her agents. Not so her
mother. Laura didn't want her girls to feel constrained, and the agents
were ordered to pull back from traditional methods of coverage,
according to the magazine's account. A few months later, when the Secret
Service scrambled to grab all presidential relatives on Sept. 11, 2001,
the agents couldn't find Jenna for hours.
The Fake ID

In Austin, in May 2001, Jenna was cited for underage drinking and
appeared in municipal court, where she was fined and given community
service. A few weeks later, at Chuy's restaurant in Austin, she and
Barbara and three friends slipped into seats about 10 at night and
ordered tequila shots and margaritas. The bartender immediately
recognized the president's daughter, according to the account he later
gave police. "The blonde in the pink halter top is Jenna Bush," he said.
"You'd better card the whole group." When Jenna tried to use a Texas
driver's license with a picture that didn't look anything at all like
her, the waitress refused to serve her, but set down on the table the
drinks and shots, which were drained.

The restaurant manager called 911. When Austin officer Clifford Rogers
asked to see Jenna's identification, she burst into tears.

"Please," she implored, according to the officer's account in the police
report. "She then stated that I do not have any idea what it is like to
be a college student, and not be able to do anything that other students
get to do."

Both twins were charged with misdemeanors. Jenna was booked with
misrepresenting her age to buy booze, a charge complicated by the
citation already on her record. She faced far stiffer penalties for the
second offense, under Texas's tough "zero tolerance" policy, which her
father had signed into law in 1997. Barbara was charged with being a
minor in possession of alcohol. Barbara pleaded no contest and got the
eight-hour community service and an order to attend alcohol-awareness
class. Jenna was fined $600, lost her driver's license for 30 days, had
to do more community service and attend alcohol-awareness class.

Again the White House refused to comment. "If it involves the daughters
and their private lives, it is a family matter," said spokesman Scott
McClellan. This episode seemed egregious enough to demand some spin,
however. A senior administration official let slip to CNN that a "not
happy" President Bush had called Jenna from California, where he was
talking up a park preservation program. There would be no word from
Laura, however. Asked if she had spoken to her daughters, aide Ashleigh
Adams said, "If she did, that would be private. Out of respect for the
girls' privacy, we don't comment on them." In the days that followed,
press secretary Ari Fleischer repeatedly lashed out at reporters who
tried to ask questions about the incident.

When they finally turned 21 on Nov. 25, 2002, White House aides breathed
a huge sigh of relief. Mom threw the girls an elaborate party at the
Crawford family ranch on Nov. 30, and busloads of revelers arrived
dressed in costumes according to the theme, which was cowboys and
Indians. Jenna insisted on celebrating her actual 21st birthday,
however, at the scene of her original crime, Cheers Shot Bar, where she
insisted staff cover the windows with black paper to prevent news crews
from seeing inside.
As Other Teens Do

In the spring of 2002, while on that European trip, Laura Bush was asked
if her girls had gotten more used to the limelight. "No," she said, "I
would have to say not. They're going to be juniors in college. They just
want to do like other teenagers do."

At the same time, those girls had gotten expert at exploiting the
notoriety they had gained as the president's daughters. They popped up
in Hollywood, where Jenna had an internship with an entertainment
company, and danced the night away with a posse of 20. In St.-Tropez,
Jenna partied with Sean "P. Diddy" Combs. In New York, the twins sent
one of their Secret Service agents over to procure an introduction to
rocker Chris Cornell, the frontman for the band Audioslave. The girls
were not averse to showing up at places where controlled substances were
enjoyed. At a Four Seasons Grill Room party for wunderkind designer Zac
Posen that Barbara attended, the air smelled of pot, according to the
New York Daily News.

In Los Angeles, they showed up at a Nike party, where they met movie
star Ashton Kutcher, who ended up taking them back to his house, he told
Rolling Stone. "So we're hanging out," he said. "The Bushes were
underage-drinking at my house. When I checked outside, one of the Secret
Service guys asked me if they'd be spending the night. I said no. And
then I go upstairs to see another friend and I can smell the green
wafting out under his door. I open the door, and there he is, smoking
out the Bush twins on his hookah."

No comment, no comment, no comment, said the White House.

When she talks about her girls at all publicly, the first lady is given
to making bland, nonspecific declarations of love and support. "I think
they're a lot of fun to be with," she said. "I guess I would say that
I'm engaged by them, with their personalities. . . . I think, like every
parent, if your children are happy, then parents are happy. And if
they're unhappy, then there's nothing more difficult for parents."

President Bush is slightly more revealing. "I love them a lot. I am
impatient with them. I wanted them to be normal when they were
teenagers, and I wanted them to be working ladies," he told Ladies Home
Journal. "I've got to slow down. I've got to allow them to become the
bright young ladies that they're becoming at their own pace, and not at
mine.

"They are beginning to realize that they've got to take some
responsibility for their own lives and beginning to think about their
career paths," he said. "Laura chose her career path . . . early. I
didn't choose mine until a little late. And uh," the president said,
chuckling, "I never really was that worried about the career path."

Ann Gerhart will be online at www.washingtonpost.comTuesday, Jan. 13, at
noon to answer questions about her book, "The Perfect Wife."

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

  #2  
Old January 9th 04, 05:51 AM
Fair and Balanced Hyco-Limbaugh Fart Detector
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default G W Bush, Parent of the Year

On 8 Jan 2004 13:37:09 -0800, (Francois) wrote:

x-no-archive:yes


How ironic that the "immoral" Clintons produced a fine young lady
while the "God is on my side" Bushes have spawned the quintessential
Wild Child.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Jan6.html

washingtonpost.com

Laura's Girls
Mrs. Bush Sought Privacy for Her Twins. They Had Their Own Idea About
What to Do With It.

By Ann Gerhart
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 7, 2004; Page C01

Adapted from "The Perfect Wife: The Life and Choices of Laura Bush," by
Ann Gerhart, published this week by Simon & Schuster

The armored black limousine glides to a stop near a U.S. military jet at
Andrews Air Force Base early one morning in May 2002. Laura Bush is
about to embark on her first solo trip as first lady, a 10-day visit to
three European nations, where she will speak out for Afghan women's rights.

An aide opens the door, and Mrs. Bush slides her legs carefully out and
steps onto the tarmac. By this point, she knows her part well: Pause to
smile, wave and let the photographers dutifully record the image. The
small press corps knows its part, too, and watches the routine preflight
maneuver with no expectations. Suddenly, one leg in worn corduroy, then
the other, swings off the smooth leather limo seat. Jenna Bush stands up
to follow her mother into the plane for this spring fling, and the
reporters go on alert. It's the rowdy twin, the one who has been busted
twice in four weeks for underage drinking, who has run her Secret
Service detail ragged, who was captured in the National Enquirer falling
down, a cigarette in her hand.

The corduroy jeans are ratty at their too-long hems, where Jenna has
ground them into the pavement too many times. She is wearing a short
black T-shirt, and her exposed tummy pooches out over the low-riding
waistband. Flip-flops are on her feet. Her blond hair has been pinned
carelessly up with a plastic clip. Sunglasses cover her eyes. Hoisting a
backpack, she clomps up the plane stairs and disappears.

She hardly looks appropriately presidential daughterly, but then again,
she has time to get herself together before the entourage lands in
Paris, where French and American officials will greet Mrs. Bush and hand
her flowers. The girl is hardly flying coach: Her mother has a
hairdresser and a makeup artist on board the military plane, and there's
a lovely wide bed and full shower.

But upon arrival 71/2 hours later, while her ladylike mother smiles and
embraces the waiting welcomers, Jenna appears at the plane door looking
exactly the same. The flip-flops still on the feet, the belly still
exposed, the hair still not brushed. Suddenly, she darts back inside.
The twin has spied the telephoto lenses of several French photographers
far away, behind a fence. For a few moments, nothing happens, and then
the limousine trunk floats open by electronic remote. A White House
valet retrieves one of Mrs. Bush's Neiman Marcus garment bags, carefully
laid out in the trunk, and he carries it back up the plane's steps. The
reporters watch in wonder. While he holds it aloft, Jenna slips behind
it, and he walks back down the stairs, shielding the first daughter from
the prying eyes of all media, foreign and domestic. Only the top of her
blond head, bobbing up and down, and those flip-flops are visible.

Jenna is hiding, literally, behind her mother's skirts.

There are only two possible explanations for what the reporters have
just witnessed. Either, A) Laura Bush has asked her 20-year-old to
please make herself more presentable, more fitting as a representative
of the United States using taxpayer dollars on an official visit, and
her daughter has adamantly refused, or B) Laura hasn't even bothered to ask.
Blessed Ambivalence

There is plenty that the Bushes don't ask their daughters to do, that
much is clear. They are college seniors now, 22, Jenna an English major
at the University of Texas in Austin, and Barbara, like her father a
Yalie, majoring in humanities. Both are considering graduate school,
their parents say, but not before working first, perhaps as teachers.

Jenna and Barbara have not campaigned or reined in their adolescent
rebellions. They have not appeared engaged in any of the pressing issues
their generation will inherit, nor shown empathy for the struggles
facing their mother and their father, the president of the United
States. They have not treated with respect their Secret Service details,
those highly trained men and women who literally would take a bullet for
them. They don't show their faces at the White House often. So far, they
have shown little inclination to embrace the life of public service
modeled by their parents, uncle and grandparents.

They are girls born rich, blessed with intelligence, good looks, trust
funds, loving parents, boundless opportunities, freedom from many of
life's daily vexing challenges. Yet they persist in seeing themselves as
victims of daddy's job. In this attitude, they have been subtly
encouraged by their mother. Laura Bush would never permit herself to
feel victimized by her husband's decisions. She regards herself as a
full partner who embraced his ambitions because she wanted for him what
he wanted for himself. His happiness has been as important to her as her
own, or greater. No, any victimization she might have felt has all been
transferred onto her girls. Once George sought political office when his
girls were 12, Laura's guiding principle in mothering became "they
didn't really ask for this," as if the life that followed for Jenna and
Barbara was some disastrous, bumpy detour from the normal smooth path
toward adulthood.

"They just want to do like every other teenager does," the first lady
has insisted often. This declaration is dead opposite from most parents'
insistence, which is, of course, "I don't care what the 'other' kids do.
You are not other kids."

Laura Bush left her career as teacher and librarian at 31. By the time
the twins were born in 1981, Laura was 35. The couple hadn't been sure
they would ever be able to have children of their own, and then Laura
nearly lost the babies late in her pregnancy, so she and George felt
doubly blessed. Their gratitude was so deep and persistent that over
time, it seems to have turned into indulgence.
Growing Pains

In many ways, the Bush twins were excellent candidates to make a good
transition to life as children of a political figure. It was the family
business, after all, and the twins' parents entered it only after they
had addressed their concerns about what it would mean for family life,
they told the Dallas Morning News in 1995. "She was the last one to sign
on, the most reluctant," the president said of Laura. "Our girls were so
little," she said. But the timing was good: After their father became
governor, Jenna and Barbara were able to go to high school in the
relatively laid-back town of Austin. By the time their parents landed in
the White House, they were away at college.

When the Bushes first moved from Dallas into the governor's mansion,
Barbara and Jenna went to the private St. Andrew's Episcopal School and
later the public Austin High, and their mother worked hard to integrate
her life as a mother with her duties as first lady. Even as the couple
traveled around the state, Laura insisted that at least she or George be
home by 4 in the afternoon, to help with homework. The four of them ate
dinner together most nights. "You'd see them at back-to-school night,
just like all the other parents, sitting at the student desks in the
classroom," said an Austinite whose kids were friends with the Bush
girls. "It was no big deal. They were just part of the parent population."

There was plenty of staff and few chores. Texas Department of Public
Safety troopers chauffeured the girls to and from school. Laura
recognized she had been deprived of an excellent way to gather teenage
intelligence. Being relieved of driving "is actually a wonderful luxury
for someone who drove 20 carpools a week in Dallas," Laura said. "At the
same time, you learn a lot about your kids when you have them captive in
a car."

In interviews during the gubernatorial years, both Bushes referred again
and again to how embarrassing their children found them. Always, they
seemed to think this was perfectly normal behavior for teenagers.

Every time he went to one of Jenna's volleyball games, the opposing team
would ask for an autograph and picture. "Jenna and Barbara's reaction,
of course, was total humiliation," he said. Laura seemed resigned to
being an object of ridicule for her girls. They made fun of her clothes,
her shoes, her hair. "Mom," they would tell her, "your hair is so stiff
it would stay put in a hurricane."

Rarely were the girls asked to come downstairs and say hello to dinner
guests. "We've been very careful not to make them go to things or be in
the limelight," Laura explained. "At this age, they don't even like to
admit they have parents." Later, during the presidential campaign, Laura
would return to this theme again. The twins were proud of their father,
she said, "and they want him, of course, to do whatever he wants to do,
but at the same time, they want the privacy that I think every senior in
high school wants. You know, most seniors in high school don't want to
even admit they have parents, you know, much less a parent who is a
governor or a presidential candidate."
The Clinton Model

Partly out of respect for their privacy, mostly out of sensitivity
toward their distaste for their dad's high profile, Laura also asked
photographers not to take the twins' pictures. Requests for a family
portrait to illustrate a magazine or newspaper story were routinely
denied. "The girls would be totally humiliated having to do a photo,"
said Laura.

When, at 16, the twins demanded separate cars, their mother assented,
and their father disagreed. "You can share one car," he said, "and learn
to work together." It was one of his rare victories in an attempt to
impose some limitations.

As the family began to discuss whether George should run for president,
the girls were adamant in their opposition. Both would be in college
before the election. They would never have to live in the White House or
attend school in Washington, as Chelsea Clinton had done from age 12.
But that calculus didn't move them. To Jenna and Barbara, it was clear
that their emancipation from the strictures of living at home would
coincide exactly with the arrival of a Secret Service detail to their
college dormitories.

The Bushes were heartened by the way the media had been protective of
Bill and Hillary Clinton's only child. "We felt like the press had given
Chelsea Clinton the opportunity to have privacy, to have a private
life," Laura said.





Yes. She was publicly mocked and called a dog by a very famous media
repreentative...albeit one who was high on dangerous mind altering
narcotics at the time.





And they determined that they would not burden their
girls with heavy expectations about their role as Bushes. The only
lesson they wanted to impart to their children, Bush said during the
presidential campaign, was "that I love you. I love you more than
anything. And therefore, you should feel free to fail or succeed, and
you can be anything you want in America."

When inauguration day arrived, Jenna and Barbara dressed to be noticed
in trendy expensive outfits by Texas-born designer Lela Rose and sexy
stiletto-heeled knee-high Jimmy Choo boots. When the moment came for the
actual swearing-in, the 19-year-old girls fidgeted toward the edge of
their chairs, then stood up, unsure how to behave. It fell to President
Clinton, who gave each of them a gentle nudge toward their parents, and
still they stood there, shoulders slumped, looking at their toes.
Finally, their grandmother Barbara Bush, seated behind them, had seen
enough. In one swift, practiced gesture, she reached forward to her
granddaughters, first one, then the other. She put her thumbs between
their shoulder blades and used her fingers to pull their shoulders up
and back. The message was clear: Stand up straight! Remember who you
are! We are Bushes, and Bushes stand up straight.
Agent Provocateurs

The mainstream press honored the administration's request to not pry
into the girls' lives. Their respective campus newspapers primly refused
to cover them. But the tabloids had become intrigued. Jenna and Barbara,
people quickly surmised, were not like the preceding first daughter.

During her years in the White House, rather than fleeing political life,
Chelsea had seized it. She called her father's secretary and asked for a
ticket to his State of the Union address. When her mother embarked on a
tour of the most disadvantaged spots in India and Africa, she wanted to
go along. Chelsea went to parties and drank and had boyfriends just like
many other teenagers -- which is what Jenna and Barbara craved -- but
Chelsea had a gift for keeping her mishaps out of the public eye. She
cultivated the protection and support of other adults in the White
House, and she treated her Secret Service agents with respect.
Accordingly, they were more inclined to protect her when she got herself
in jams.

The twins, meanwhile, seemed to have decided that their agents were
their enemies -- and their chauffeurs, bellhops and valets.

It only took a month after their dad became president for Jenna to land
in the headlines, with news that she had used her Secret Service detail
to spring a male friend from a Texas jail after he was arrested for
public intoxication. The White House refused to comment about the
incident, and so did the Secret Service when a spokesman was asked about
the propriety of using agents to spring drunk kids from the county clink.

It was the first of many conundrums the Bushes would face as their
daughters traversed their last years of being underage. Should they
reveal the particulars of an incident to prove that nothing improper had
happened, or maintain the no-comment policy and allow questions to bloom
into controversy? Within weeks, the National Enquirer had printed a
full-page photo of Jenna laughing and holding a cigarette, crashing to
the floor atop a giggling female friend, and Barbara had given the slip
to her Secret Service detail as she and some fellow Yale students drove
to Manhattan to a World Wrestling Federation match, according to an
article in the Yale magazine Rumpus. Using an electronic pass to go
through a tollbooth, the car in which Barbara was riding then speeded up
and left the agents, who were paying their toll in cash, behind.

Even when Laura was confronted with evidence that her girls were
deliberately and dangerously evasive with their agents, she seemed
unwilling to correct them. The agents were told to back off. The press
was blamed for the reports. The unofficial position was that the twins
were just singled out for unfair attention, even after Jenna was busted
for underage drinking twice in four weeks. That summer of 2001, Jenna
sat in a crowded bar and tried to sweet-talk the bartender into breaking
the law and serving her, but he lost his nerve when he saw the guys with
the earpieces and asked her to leave. Jenna, according to an account in
U.S. News & World Report, was furious. She yelled at her agents, then
fled down a back alley. They gave chase, said the magazine, and when
they caught up with her, she taunted them: "You know if anything happens
to me, my dad would have your ass."

But when she called her father to complain that her detail was
interfering with her drinking, he sided with her agents. Not so her
mother. Laura didn't want her girls to feel constrained, and the agents
were ordered to pull back from traditional methods of coverage,
according to the magazine's account. A few months later, when the Secret
Service scrambled to grab all presidential relatives on Sept. 11, 2001,
the agents couldn't find Jenna for hours.
The Fake ID

In Austin, in May 2001, Jenna was cited for underage drinking and
appeared in municipal court, where she was fined and given community
service. A few weeks later, at Chuy's restaurant in Austin, she and
Barbara and three friends slipped into seats about 10 at night and
ordered tequila shots and margaritas. The bartender immediately
recognized the president's daughter, according to the account he later
gave police. "The blonde in the pink halter top is Jenna Bush," he said.
"You'd better card the whole group." When Jenna tried to use a Texas
driver's license with a picture that didn't look anything at all like
her, the waitress refused to serve her, but set down on the table the
drinks and shots, which were drained.

The restaurant manager called 911. When Austin officer Clifford Rogers
asked to see Jenna's identification, she burst into tears.

"Please," she implored, according to the officer's account in the police
report. "She then stated that I do not have any idea what it is like to
be a college student, and not be able to do anything that other students
get to do."

Both twins were charged with misdemeanors. Jenna was booked with
misrepresenting her age to buy booze, a charge complicated by the
citation already on her record. She faced far stiffer penalties for the
second offense, under Texas's tough "zero tolerance" policy, which her
father had signed into law in 1997. Barbara was charged with being a
minor in possession of alcohol. Barbara pleaded no contest and got the
eight-hour community service and an order to attend alcohol-awareness
class. Jenna was fined $600, lost her driver's license for 30 days, had
to do more community service and attend alcohol-awareness class.

Again the White House refused to comment. "If it involves the daughters
and their private lives, it is a family matter," said spokesman Scott
McClellan. This episode seemed egregious enough to demand some spin,
however. A senior administration official let slip to CNN that a "not
happy" President Bush had called Jenna from California, where he was
talking up a park preservation program. There would be no word from
Laura, however. Asked if she had spoken to her daughters, aide Ashleigh
Adams said, "If she did, that would be private. Out of respect for the
girls' privacy, we don't comment on them." In the days that followed,
press secretary Ari Fleischer repeatedly lashed out at reporters who
tried to ask questions about the incident.

When they finally turned 21 on Nov. 25, 2002, White House aides breathed
a huge sigh of relief. Mom threw the girls an elaborate party at the
Crawford family ranch on Nov. 30, and busloads of revelers arrived
dressed in costumes according to the theme, which was cowboys and
Indians. Jenna insisted on celebrating her actual 21st birthday,
however, at the scene of her original crime, Cheers Shot Bar, where she
insisted staff cover the windows with black paper to prevent news crews
from seeing inside.
As Other Teens Do

In the spring of 2002, while on that European trip, Laura Bush was asked
if her girls had gotten more used to the limelight. "No," she said, "I
would have to say not. They're going to be juniors in college. They just
want to do like other teenagers do."

At the same time, those girls had gotten expert at exploiting the
notoriety they had gained as the president's daughters. They popped up
in Hollywood, where Jenna had an internship with an entertainment
company, and danced the night away with a posse of 20. In St.-Tropez,
Jenna partied with Sean "P. Diddy" Combs. In New York, the twins sent
one of their Secret Service agents over to procure an introduction to
rocker Chris Cornell, the frontman for the band Audioslave. The girls
were not averse to showing up at places where controlled substances were
enjoyed. At a Four Seasons Grill Room party for wunderkind designer Zac
Posen that Barbara attended, the air smelled of pot, according to the
New York Daily News.

In Los Angeles, they showed up at a Nike party, where they met movie
star Ashton Kutcher, who ended up taking them back to his house, he told
Rolling Stone. "So we're hanging out," he said. "The Bushes were
underage-drinking at my house. When I checked outside, one of the Secret
Service guys asked me if they'd be spending the night. I said no. And
then I go upstairs to see another friend and I can smell the green
wafting out under his door. I open the door, and there he is, smoking
out the Bush twins on his hookah."

No comment, no comment, no comment, said the White House.

When she talks about her girls at all publicly, the first lady is given
to making bland, nonspecific declarations of love and support. "I think
they're a lot of fun to be with," she said. "I guess I would say that
I'm engaged by them, with their personalities. . . . I think, like every
parent, if your children are happy, then parents are happy. And if
they're unhappy, then there's nothing more difficult for parents."

President Bush is slightly more revealing. "I love them a lot. I am
impatient with them. I wanted them to be normal when they were
teenagers, and I wanted them to be working ladies," he told Ladies Home
Journal. "I've got to slow down. I've got to allow them to become the
bright young ladies that they're becoming at their own pace, and not at
mine.

"They are beginning to realize that they've got to take some
responsibility for their own lives and beginning to think about their
career paths," he said. "Laura chose her career path . . . early. I
didn't choose mine until a little late. And uh," the president said,
chuckling, "I never really was that worried about the career path."

Ann Gerhart will be online at www.washingtonpost.comTuesday, Jan. 13, at
noon to answer questions about her book, "The Perfect Wife."

© 2004 The Washington Post Company


  #3  
Old January 9th 04, 05:56 AM
James Monroe
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default G W Bush, Parent of the Year

On 8 Jan 2004 13:37:09 -0800, (Francois) wrote:

x-no-archive:yes


How ironic that the "immoral" Clintons produced a fine young lady
while the "God is on my side" Bushes have spawned the quintessential
Wild Child.


The twins had the disadvantage of being raised by a coke snorting
drunk who passed on the family heritage that rules don't apply to
them. It's amazing the twins aren't more wild than they are.





http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Jan6.html

washingtonpost.com

Laura's Girls
Mrs. Bush Sought Privacy for Her Twins. They Had Their Own Idea About
What to Do With It.

By Ann Gerhart
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 7, 2004; Page C01

Adapted from "The Perfect Wife: The Life and Choices of Laura Bush," by
Ann Gerhart, published this week by Simon & Schuster

The armored black limousine glides to a stop near a U.S. military jet at
Andrews Air Force Base early one morning in May 2002. Laura Bush is
about to embark on her first solo trip as first lady, a 10-day visit to
three European nations, where she will speak out for Afghan women's rights.

An aide opens the door, and Mrs. Bush slides her legs carefully out and
steps onto the tarmac. By this point, she knows her part well: Pause to
smile, wave and let the photographers dutifully record the image. The
small press corps knows its part, too, and watches the routine preflight
maneuver with no expectations. Suddenly, one leg in worn corduroy, then
the other, swings off the smooth leather limo seat. Jenna Bush stands up
to follow her mother into the plane for this spring fling, and the
reporters go on alert. It's the rowdy twin, the one who has been busted
twice in four weeks for underage drinking, who has run her Secret
Service detail ragged, who was captured in the National Enquirer falling
down, a cigarette in her hand.

The corduroy jeans are ratty at their too-long hems, where Jenna has
ground them into the pavement too many times. She is wearing a short
black T-shirt, and her exposed tummy pooches out over the low-riding
waistband. Flip-flops are on her feet. Her blond hair has been pinned
carelessly up with a plastic clip. Sunglasses cover her eyes. Hoisting a
backpack, she clomps up the plane stairs and disappears.

She hardly looks appropriately presidential daughterly, but then again,
she has time to get herself together before the entourage lands in
Paris, where French and American officials will greet Mrs. Bush and hand
her flowers. The girl is hardly flying coach: Her mother has a
hairdresser and a makeup artist on board the military plane, and there's
a lovely wide bed and full shower.

But upon arrival 71/2 hours later, while her ladylike mother smiles and
embraces the waiting welcomers, Jenna appears at the plane door looking
exactly the same. The flip-flops still on the feet, the belly still
exposed, the hair still not brushed. Suddenly, she darts back inside.
The twin has spied the telephoto lenses of several French photographers
far away, behind a fence. For a few moments, nothing happens, and then
the limousine trunk floats open by electronic remote. A White House
valet retrieves one of Mrs. Bush's Neiman Marcus garment bags, carefully
laid out in the trunk, and he carries it back up the plane's steps. The
reporters watch in wonder. While he holds it aloft, Jenna slips behind
it, and he walks back down the stairs, shielding the first daughter from
the prying eyes of all media, foreign and domestic. Only the top of her
blond head, bobbing up and down, and those flip-flops are visible.

Jenna is hiding, literally, behind her mother's skirts.

There are only two possible explanations for what the reporters have
just witnessed. Either, A) Laura Bush has asked her 20-year-old to
please make herself more presentable, more fitting as a representative
of the United States using taxpayer dollars on an official visit, and
her daughter has adamantly refused, or B) Laura hasn't even bothered to ask.
Blessed Ambivalence

There is plenty that the Bushes don't ask their daughters to do, that
much is clear. They are college seniors now, 22, Jenna an English major
at the University of Texas in Austin, and Barbara, like her father a
Yalie, majoring in humanities. Both are considering graduate school,
their parents say, but not before working first, perhaps as teachers.

Jenna and Barbara have not campaigned or reined in their adolescent
rebellions. They have not appeared engaged in any of the pressing issues
their generation will inherit, nor shown empathy for the struggles
facing their mother and their father, the president of the United
States. They have not treated with respect their Secret Service details,
those highly trained men and women who literally would take a bullet for
them. They don't show their faces at the White House often. So far, they
have shown little inclination to embrace the life of public service
modeled by their parents, uncle and grandparents.

They are girls born rich, blessed with intelligence, good looks, trust
funds, loving parents, boundless opportunities, freedom from many of
life's daily vexing challenges. Yet they persist in seeing themselves as
victims of daddy's job. In this attitude, they have been subtly
encouraged by their mother. Laura Bush would never permit herself to
feel victimized by her husband's decisions. She regards herself as a
full partner who embraced his ambitions because she wanted for him what
he wanted for himself. His happiness has been as important to her as her
own, or greater. No, any victimization she might have felt has all been
transferred onto her girls. Once George sought political office when his
girls were 12, Laura's guiding principle in mothering became "they
didn't really ask for this," as if the life that followed for Jenna and
Barbara was some disastrous, bumpy detour from the normal smooth path
toward adulthood.

"They just want to do like every other teenager does," the first lady
has insisted often. This declaration is dead opposite from most parents'
insistence, which is, of course, "I don't care what the 'other' kids do.
You are not other kids."

Laura Bush left her career as teacher and librarian at 31. By the time
the twins were born in 1981, Laura was 35. The couple hadn't been sure
they would ever be able to have children of their own, and then Laura
nearly lost the babies late in her pregnancy, so she and George felt
doubly blessed. Their gratitude was so deep and persistent that over
time, it seems to have turned into indulgence.
Growing Pains

In many ways, the Bush twins were excellent candidates to make a good
transition to life as children of a political figure. It was the family
business, after all, and the twins' parents entered it only after they
had addressed their concerns about what it would mean for family life,
they told the Dallas Morning News in 1995. "She was the last one to sign
on, the most reluctant," the president said of Laura. "Our girls were so
little," she said. But the timing was good: After their father became
governor, Jenna and Barbara were able to go to high school in the
relatively laid-back town of Austin. By the time their parents landed in
the White House, they were away at college.

When the Bushes first moved from Dallas into the governor's mansion,
Barbara and Jenna went to the private St. Andrew's Episcopal School and
later the public Austin High, and their mother worked hard to integrate
her life as a mother with her duties as first lady. Even as the couple
traveled around the state, Laura insisted that at least she or George be
home by 4 in the afternoon, to help with homework. The four of them ate
dinner together most nights. "You'd see them at back-to-school night,
just like all the other parents, sitting at the student desks in the
classroom," said an Austinite whose kids were friends with the Bush
girls. "It was no big deal. They were just part of the parent population."

There was plenty of staff and few chores. Texas Department of Public
Safety troopers chauffeured the girls to and from school. Laura
recognized she had been deprived of an excellent way to gather teenage
intelligence. Being relieved of driving "is actually a wonderful luxury
for someone who drove 20 carpools a week in Dallas," Laura said. "At the
same time, you learn a lot about your kids when you have them captive in
a car."

In interviews during the gubernatorial years, both Bushes referred again
and again to how embarrassing their children found them. Always, they
seemed to think this was perfectly normal behavior for teenagers.

Every time he went to one of Jenna's volleyball games, the opposing team
would ask for an autograph and picture. "Jenna and Barbara's reaction,
of course, was total humiliation," he said. Laura seemed resigned to
being an object of ridicule for her girls. They made fun of her clothes,
her shoes, her hair. "Mom," they would tell her, "your hair is so stiff
it would stay put in a hurricane."

Rarely were the girls asked to come downstairs and say hello to dinner
guests. "We've been very careful not to make them go to things or be in
the limelight," Laura explained. "At this age, they don't even like to
admit they have parents." Later, during the presidential campaign, Laura
would return to this theme again. The twins were proud of their father,
she said, "and they want him, of course, to do whatever he wants to do,
but at the same time, they want the privacy that I think every senior in
high school wants. You know, most seniors in high school don't want to
even admit they have parents, you know, much less a parent who is a
governor or a presidential candidate."
The Clinton Model

Partly out of respect for their privacy, mostly out of sensitivity
toward their distaste for their dad's high profile, Laura also asked
photographers not to take the twins' pictures. Requests for a family
portrait to illustrate a magazine or newspaper story were routinely
denied. "The girls would be totally humiliated having to do a photo,"
said Laura.

When, at 16, the twins demanded separate cars, their mother assented,
and their father disagreed. "You can share one car," he said, "and learn
to work together." It was one of his rare victories in an attempt to
impose some limitations.

As the family began to discuss whether George should run for president,
the girls were adamant in their opposition. Both would be in college
before the election. They would never have to live in the White House or
attend school in Washington, as Chelsea Clinton had done from age 12.
But that calculus didn't move them. To Jenna and Barbara, it was clear
that their emancipation from the strictures of living at home would
coincide exactly with the arrival of a Secret Service detail to their
college dormitories.

The Bushes were heartened by the way the media had been protective of
Bill and Hillary Clinton's only child. "We felt like the prss had given
Chelsea Clinton the opportunity to have privacy, to have a private
life," Laura said. And they determined that they would not burden their
girls with heavy expectations about their role as Bushes. The only
lesson they wanted to impart to their children, Bush said during the
presidential campaign, was "that I love you. I love you more than
anything. And therefore, you should feel free to fail or succeed, and
you can be anything you want in America."

When inauguration day arrived, Jenna and Barbara dressed to be noticed
in trendy expensive outfits by Texas-born designer Lela Rose and sexy
stiletto-heeled knee-high Jimmy Choo boots. When the moment came for the
actual swearing-in, the 19-year-old girls fidgeted toward the edge of
their chairs, then stood up, unsure how to behave. It fell to President
Clinton, who gave each of them a gentle nudge toward their parents, and
still they stood there, shoulders slumped, looking at their toes.
Finally, their grandmother Barbara Bush, seated behind them, had seen
enough. In one swift, practiced gesture, she reached forward to her
granddaughters, first one, then the other. She put her thumbs between
their shoulder blades and used her fingers to pull their shoulders up
and back. The message was clear: Stand up straight! Remember who you
are! We are Bushes, and Bushes stand up straight.
Agent Provocateurs

The mainstream press honored the administration's request to not pry
into the girls' lives. Their respective campus newspapers primly refused
to cover them. But the tabloids had become intrigued. Jenna and Barbara,
people quickly surmised, were not like the preceding first daughter.

During her years in the White House, rather than fleeing political life,
Chelsea had seized it. She called her father's secretary and asked for a
ticket to his State of the Union address. When her mother embarked on a
tour of the most disadvantaged spots in India and Africa, she wanted to
go along. Chelsea went to parties and drank and had boyfriends just like
many other teenagers -- which is what Jenna and Barbara craved -- but
Chelsea had a gift for keeping her mishaps out of the public eye. She
cultivated the protection and support of other adults in the White
House, and she treated her Secret Service agents with respect.
Accordingly, they were more inclined to protect her when she got herself
in jams.

The twins, meanwhile, seemed to have decided that their agents were
their enemies -- and their chauffeurs, bellhops and valets.

It only took a month after their dad became president for Jenna to land
in the headlines, with news that she had used her Secret Service detail
to spring a male friend from a Texas jail after he was arrested for
public intoxication. The White House refused to comment about the
incident, and so did the Secret Service when a spokesman was asked about
the propriety of using agents to spring drunk kids from the county clink.

It was the first of many conundrums the Bushes would face as their
daughters traversed their last years of being underage. Should they
reveal the particulars of an incident to prove that nothing improper had
happened, or maintain the no-comment policy and allow questions to bloom
into controversy? Within weeks, the National Enquirer had printed a
full-page photo of Jenna laughing and holding a cigarette, crashing to
the floor atop a giggling female friend, and Barbara had given the slip
to her Secret Service detail as she and some fellow Yale students drove
to Manhattan to a World Wrestling Federation match, according to an
article in the Yale magazine Rumpus. Using an electronic pass to go
through a tollbooth, the car in which Barbara was riding then speeded up
and left the agents, who were paying their toll in cash, behind.

Even when Laura was confronted with evidence that her girls were
deliberately and dangerously evasive with their agents, she seemed
unwilling to correct them. The agents were told to back off. The press
was blamed for the reports. The unofficial position was that the twins
were just singled out for unfair attention, even after Jenna was busted
for underage drinking twice in four weeks. That summer of 2001, Jenna
sat in a crowded bar and tried to sweet-talk the bartender into breaking
the law and serving her, but he lost his nerve when he saw the guys with
the earpieces and asked her to leave. Jenna, according to an account in
U.S. News & World Report, was furious. She yelled at her agents, then
fled down a back alley. They gave chase, said the magazine, and when
they caught up with her, she taunted them: "You know if anything happens
to me, my dad would have your ass."

But when she called her father to complain that her detail was
interfering with her drinking, he sided with her agents. Not so her
mother. Laura didn't want her girls to feel constrained, and the agents
were ordered to pull back from traditional methods of coverage,
according to the magazine's account. A few months later, when the Secret
Service scrambled to grab all presidential relatives on Sept. 11, 2001,
the agents couldn't find Jenna for hours.
The Fake ID

In Austin, in May 2001, Jenna was cited for underage drinking and
appeared in municipal court, where she was fined and given community
service. A few weeks later, at Chuy's restaurant in Austin, she and
Barbara and three friends slipped into seats about 10 at night and
ordered tequila shots and margaritas. The bartender immediately
recognized the president's daughter, according to the account he later
gave police. "The blonde in the pink halter top is Jenna Bush," he said.
"You'd better card the whole group." When Jenna tried to use a Texas
driver's license with a picture that didn't look anything at all like
her, the waitress refused to serve her, but set down on the table the
drinks and shots, which were drained.

The restaurant manager called 911. When Austin officer Clifford Rogers
asked to see Jenna's identification, she burst into tears.

"Please," she implored, according to the officer's account in the police
report. "She then stated that I do not have any idea what it is like to
be a college student, and not be able to do anything that other students
get to do."

Both twins were charged with misdemeanors. Jenna was booked with
misrepresenting her age to buy booze, a charge complicated by the
citation already on her record. She faced far stiffer penalties for the
second offense, under Texas's tough "zero tolerance" policy, which her
father had signed into law in 1997. Barbara was charged with being a
minor in possession of alcohol. Barbara pleaded no contest and got the
eight-hour community service and an order to attend alcohol-awareness
class. Jenna was fined $600, lost her driver's license for 30 days, had
to do more community service and attend alcohol-awareness class.

Again the White House refused to comment. "If it involves the daughters
and their private lives, it is a family matter," said spokesman Scott
McClellan. This episode seemed egregious enough to demand some spin,
however. A senior administration official let slip to CNN that a "not
happy" President Bush had called Jenna from California, where he was
talking up a park preservation program. There would be no word from
Laura, however. Asked if she had spoken to her daughters, aide Ashleigh
Adams said, "If she did, that would be private. Out of respect for the
girls' privacy, we don't comment on them." In the days that followed,
press secretary Ari Fleischer repeatedly lashed out at reporters who
tried to ask questions about the incident.

When they finally turned 21 on Nov. 25, 2002, White House aides breathed
a huge sigh of relief. Mom threw the girls an elaborate party at the
Crawford family ranch on Nov. 30, and busloads of revelers arrived
dressed in costumes according to the theme, which was cowboys and
Indians. Jenna insisted on celebrating her actual 21st birthday,
however, at the scene of her original crime, Cheers Shot Bar, where she
insisted staff cover the windows with black paper to prevent news crews
from seeing inside.
As Other Teens Do

In the spring of 2002, while on that European trip, Laura Bush was asked
if her girls had gotten more used to the limelight. "No," she said, "I
would have to say not. They're going to be juniors in college. They just
want to do like other teenagers do."

At the same time, those girls had gotten expert at exploiting the
notoriety they had gained as the president's daughters. They popped up
in Hollywood, where Jenna had an internship with an entertainment
company, and danced the night away with a posse of 20. In St.-Tropez,
Jenna partied with Sean "P. Diddy" Combs. In New York, the twins sent
one of their Secret Service agents over to procure an introduction to
rocker Chris Cornell, the frontman for the band Audioslave. The girls
were not averse to showing up at places where controlled substances were
enjoyed. At a Four Seasons Grill Room party for wunderkind designer Zac
Posen that Barbara attended, the air smelled of pot, according to the
New York Daily News.

In Los Angeles, they showed up at a Nike party, where they met movie
star Ashton Kutcher, who ended up taking them back to his house, he told
Rolling Stone. "So we're hanging out," he said. "The Bushes were
underage-drinking at my house. When I checked outside, one of the Secret
Service guys asked me if they'd be spending the night. I said no. And
then I go upstairs to see another friend and I can smell the green
wafting out under his door. I open the door, and there he is, smoking
out the Bush twins on his hookah."

No comment, no comment, no comment, said the White House.

When she talks about her girls at all publicly, the first lady is given
to making bland, nonspecific declarations of love and support. "I think
they're a lot of fun to be with," she said. "I guess I would say that
I'm engaged by them, with their personalities. . . . I think, like every
parent, if your children are happy, then parents are happy. And if
they're unhappy, then there's nothing more difficult for parents."

President Bush is slightly more revealing. "I love them a lot. I am
impatient with them. I wanted them to be normal when they were
teenagers, and I wanted them to be working ladies," he told Ladies Home
Journal. "I've got to slow down. I've got to allow them to become the
bright young ladies that they're becoming at their own pace, and not at
mine.

"They are beginning to realize that they've got to take some
responsibility for their own lives and beginning to think about their
career paths," he said. "Laura chose her career path . . . early. I
didn't choose mine until a little late. And uh," the president said,
chuckling, "I never really was that worried about the career path."

Ann Gerhart will be online at www.washingtonpost.comTuesday, Jan. 13, at
noon to answer questions about her book, "The Perfect Wife."

© 2004 The Washington Post Company


  #5  
Old January 10th 04, 04:19 AM
Jeff
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default G W Bush, Parent of the Year


"Francois" wrote in message
om...

How ironic that the "immoral" Clintons produced a fine young lady
while the "God is on my side" Bushes have spawned the quintessential
Wild Child.


Who cares? Bush isn't running for parent of the year, but President. Your
decision should be based on how good of a President he is (e.g., does he lie
about important things like weapons of mass destruction and ensure his
information is accurate, make good economic decisions, like not run a budget
deficit, make sure schools have enough money, and make sure everyone gets
good health care), not how good of a parent he (or other members of his
family) is.

Jeff

Illegally copied copyrighted material deleted.


  #6  
Old January 10th 04, 06:15 AM
James Monroe
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default G W Bush, Parent of the Year

On Fri, 9 Jan 2004 22:19:32 -0500, "Jeff"
wrote:


"Francois" wrote in message
. com...

How ironic that the "immoral" Clintons produced a fine young lady
while the "God is on my side" Bushes have spawned the quintessential
Wild Child.


Who cares? Bush isn't running for parent of the year, but President. Your
decision should be based on how good of a President he is (e.g., does he lie
about important things like weapons of mass destruction and ensure his
information is accurate, make good economic decisions, like not run a budget
deficit, make sure schools have enough money, and make sure everyone gets
good health care), not how good of a parent he (or other members of his
family) is.

Jeff



He can be considered as you suggest if you can convince him to cool it
with the "family values" crapola he's so fond of vomiting out. People
do tend to be held to the values they claim as their own.

Moreover, I'm not sure bush would be comfortable being considered as
you describe. He never has been what would be called "results
oriented".


  #7  
Old January 10th 04, 05:12 PM
Jeff
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default G W Bush, Parent of the Year


"James Monroe" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 9 Jan 2004 22:19:32 -0500, "Jeff"
wrote:


"Francois" wrote in message
. com...

How ironic that the "immoral" Clintons produced a fine young lady
while the "God is on my side" Bushes have spawned the quintessential
Wild Child.


Who cares? Bush isn't running for parent of the year, but President. Your
decision should be based on how good of a President he is (e.g., does he

lie
about important things like weapons of mass destruction and ensure his
information is accurate, make good economic decisions, like not run a

budget
deficit, make sure schools have enough money, and make sure everyone gets
good health care), not how good of a parent he (or other members of his
family) is.

Jeff



He can be considered as you suggest if you can convince him to cool it
with the "family values" crapola he's so fond of vomiting out. People
do tend to be held to the values they claim as their own.


Both girls go to college. Sounds good. Parents attended volleyball games.
Good. Parents tried to eat dinner with their kids. Good. Parents made
running for Presient was apparently a family decision and properly discussed
with the girls, first. Sound good. Parents have job pressures that means
parents have to be away from home and can't eat and do everything with their
kids. Sounds like a normal family.

The young ladies try to keep away from their secret service agents and want
to drink with their friends. Sounds normal. I would do the same thing if I
were a teenager or in college.

The one young lady dressed in old genes and wear flip-flops while on an
apparently official flight to Paris. Who cares? She should could have gone
in shorts and carried her teddy bear there, too. Even though she was
apparently representing the US, she wasn't at a state function. In other
words, she was in private. And her behavior was appropriate. And none of our
business. Oh, and didn't you mention she was spending time with her mom?
Sound good.

It sounds to me like the reporter is making a big deal about normal teenage
behavior, private events and rather unusual family pressures (having a
parent who has a Ph.D. and another who is either a governor or president is
rather unusual and very stressful).

Moreover, I'm not sure bush would be comfortable being considered as
you describe.


Then he should do things that are good for the country.

He never has been what would be called "results
oriented".


One result he would like is getting elected to the presidency at least once.
And some of the results (record deficits, low taxation for the rich, civil
rights trampled in the US and Iraq, thousands of Iraqis dead and the
infrastructure destroyed) don't seem to bother him. Besides, he can give
contracts to his rich friends. One result he does like is all the money he
is raising for his reelection campaign. Money talks.

Jeff


  #8  
Old January 10th 04, 09:07 PM
James Monroe
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default G W Bush, Parent of the Year

On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 11:12:11 -0500, "Jeff"
wrote:


"James Monroe" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 9 Jan 2004 22:19:32 -0500, "Jeff"
wrote:


"Francois" wrote in message
. com...

How ironic that the "immoral" Clintons produced a fine young lady
while the "God is on my side" Bushes have spawned the quintessential
Wild Child.

Who cares? Bush isn't running for parent of the year, but President. Your
decision should be based on how good of a President he is (e.g., does he

lie
about important things like weapons of mass destruction and ensure his
information is accurate, make good economic decisions, like not run a

budget
deficit, make sure schools have enough money, and make sure everyone gets
good health care), not how good of a parent he (or other members of his
family) is.

Jeff



He can be considered as you suggest if you can convince him to cool it
with the "family values" crapola he's so fond of vomiting out. People
do tend to be held to the values they claim as their own.


Both girls go to college. Sounds good. Parents attended volleyball games.
Good. Parents tried to eat dinner with their kids. Good. Parents made
running for Presient was apparently a family decision and properly discussed
with the girls, first. Sound good. Parents have job pressures that means
parents have to be away from home and can't eat and do everything with their
kids. Sounds like a normal family.

The young ladies try to keep away from their secret service agents and want
to drink with their friends. Sounds normal. I would do the same thing if I
were a teenager or in college.

The one young lady dressed in old genes and wear flip-flops while on an
apparently official flight to Paris. Who cares? She should could have gone
in shorts and carried her teddy bear there, too. Even though she was
apparently representing the US, she wasn't at a state function. In other
words, she was in private. And her behavior was appropriate. And none of our
business. Oh, and didn't you mention she was spending time with her mom?
Sound good.

It sounds to me like the reporter is making a big deal about normal teenage
behavior, private events and rather unusual family pressures (having a
parent who has a Ph.D. and another who is either a governor or president is
rather unusual and very stressful).

Moreover, I'm not sure bush would be comfortable being considered as
you describe.


Then he should do things that are good for the country.

He never has been what would be called "results
oriented".


One result he would like is getting elected to the presidency at least once.
And some of the results (record deficits, low taxation for the rich, civil
rights trampled in the US and Iraq, thousands of Iraqis dead and the
infrastructure destroyed) don't seem to bother him. Besides, he can give
contracts to his rich friends. One result he does like is all the money he
is raising for his reelection campaign. Money talks.

Jeff


I agree about the kids; never really seen any behavior that different
from any normal college aged kid.

You remember the Barbara Walters interview with georgie and laura?
During that interview, george complicated the girls life considerably
when he said something to this effect:

"I'm fair game. She (motioning to laura) is sort of fair game. But the
girls are NOT fair game! I mean it!"

Issuing a dare like that to a hungry media was simply foolish. He
might as well of put targets on their backs.

  #9  
Old January 10th 04, 09:13 PM
toto
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default G W Bush, Parent of the Year

On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 11:12:11 -0500, "Jeff"
wrote:

The young ladies try to keep away from their secret service
agents and want to drink with their friends. Sounds normal.
I would do the same thing if I were a teenager or in college.


The young ladies acquire and drink alcohol while underage.
In college most students are of an age to drink. Bush's kids
were under the legal drinking age.


--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

The Outer Limits
  #10  
Old January 10th 04, 09:28 PM
Jenn
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default G W Bush, Parent of the Year

In article ,
toto wrote:

On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 11:12:11 -0500, "Jeff"
wrote:

The young ladies try to keep away from their secret service
agents and want to drink with their friends. Sounds normal.
I would do the same thing if I were a teenager or in college.


The young ladies acquire and drink alcohol while underage.
In college most students are of an age to drink. Bush's kids
were under the legal drinking age.


most college students are under the legal drinking age -- whether this
makes sense or not that is the law

of course Jeb and George Bush BOTH sponsored draconian laws that would
cut little slack for OTHER people's children who violate these laws --
but where their own are concerned the rules are different
 




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