TOO MUCH GLEE, NOT ENOUGH SCRUTINY
BY JULIANNE MALVEAUX
Anyone who reads me regularly will not be surprised to learn that
I am no
fan of George W. Bush’s. The man works my nerves for hundreds of reasons,
not the least of which is the way that he sticky-finger stole the election
from Al Gore in Florida. Findings from the Civil Rights Commission reinforce
by belief that the election was not only stolen, but also stolen in a
racially biased manner. The report says that black voters were ten times as
likely to find their votes uncounted as white voters were. There was no
level playing filed in the voting booth in Florida.
That said, I have been cringing at the coverage of the Bush twins recent
collision with alcohol laws. There has been too much glee, too much joy in
headlines like the New York Post’s “Jenna and Tonic” blast about the teen’s
trouble with the law. Yes, I know, it is the second arrest in less than a
month for Jenna Bush. On a scale of one to ten, her judgment ranks minus
two. Still, the nineteen-year old is exactly that, nineteen. I say turn
down the volume on her trouble, and turn up the volume on her dad.
The Bush White House, through spokesman Ari Fleisher, has asked that the
press give the Bush girls a break. They say this is a private matter, and it
is. Still, it wasn’t private that Barbara and Jenna Bush’s daddy, the
President, has had his own collisions with the law. The same press who said
“hands off” on the President now have said “hands on” to his minor daughters.
If anyone deserves scrutiny, it’s George W. Bush, not his daughters. But
they are much easier targets than he is, and dumping on them requires fewer
resources and less investigation.
The treatment of the Bush girls raises questions about the many ways that
we view adolescents. The folks between 13 and 19, whose hormones rage and
judgment plummets, are alternately treated and children and adults. They can
vote or take a bullet in service for our country, but they can’t drink. Are
we suggesting that it takes less sense and maturity to navigate a ballot than
to order a cocktail? Those between 13 and 19 are seen to have so little
responsibility that they aren’t allowed to drink. But if they are 13 and
African American, they can be sente3nced to the death penalty for crimes that
are perhaps the result of the same raging hormones that motivated underage
drinking laws. Are these young women children or adults? Adolescence is the
murky space in between. Our ambivalence about adolescents, along with our
taste for scandal, seems to drive this scrutiny of the Bush girls. Did this
same ambivalence drive our softness toward George W. Bush?
Too many pundits have prefaced their comments about Barbara and Jenna
Bush with confessions of their own adolescent behavior. They drank beer at
college (surprise, surprise), perhaps inhaled, and generally had a funky good
time in those fuzzy four years between high school and college. Having
established their own fallibility, these pundits have gone on to offer their
opinions about the Bush girls. Psychologists, sociologists, and family
therapists have emerged from the pundocracy, and opinions fly about whether
this is a “like father, like daughter” alcohol problem, or whether these are
simple youthful hi-jinks. The pundits need to give themselves, and the Bush
girls, a break. If they want to dig, they need to dig into father, not the
daughters.
I’m a left of center Democrat who would gladly take George W. Bush’s feet
and hold them to fire. Still, I fear there is an element of partisanship
that has fueled the glee that accompanies condemnations of the Bush girls.
There are those who were looking for blood and were frightened to find it in
the weaknesses of the father. They ought not take out their fear on the
fallibility of his teen daughters. They are teenagers, for gosh sake,
youngsters who hardly differ from their peers in experimenting with alcohol,
rebelling against their parents, and taking a walk on the wild side.
If they keep walking, this will be a problem. But first and second
collisions with the law deserve a break. I’d only ask, from a level playing
filed perspective, that other young people get the same break the White House
wants for the Bush girls. Further, while I’m happy to deep fry George W.
Bush, I’d ask my colleagues, though, to go after him for his own
transgressions, not those of his minor daughters. I’d rather see criticism
of President Bush’s policies than barbs aimed at his children who, according
to most experts, are living through the most difficult time of their life in
the public eye.