by: Jenni Vinson
June 1, 2001
America etched into its collective heart and mind the picture of that little boy who stood next to his grieving mother by the side of the road as the motorcade carrying his father�s coffin passed them by. We watched him raise his hand, the same hand that wore his father�s watch ( which looked huge on him), as he saluted his father, the slain President. Jon-Jon Kennedy made America proud that day.
It is difficult to think of other moments when America�s First Children, the children of our President�s, have given us cause for pride. More often we have been given cause to speculate and perhaps even to feel a national shame.
The Kennedy�s were the last Adminstration to enjoy a restrained Press. During those days, the personal activities of the President and of his family were deemed as off limits for the Press to write about. In many ways, the Press felt it was their duty to put forth a strong face for the Presidents. Historians have written about how reporters may have slightly embellished the great feats of some of our Presidents.
The Vietnam War ended all that. The Press followed the public�s perception that our elected officals needing to be carefully scrutinized in every aspect of their lives. What we had once labeled as �public servants� became the Establishment, an entity that was corrupt, dishonest, evil and needed to be dismantled.
Everything became fair game. Elected officials had no private life. Everything that could be found out could be reported no matter how private the matter or how lurid or regardless of who it affected. No one was considered to be an innocent party or bystander. So, that if a wife found out that her husband was cheating by reading it on the front page of the newspaper, so be it. The Press insisted that it all fell under the �people�s right to know�.
As Americans, if our Political Party is in power and our candidate is taking a beating at the hands of the press, we complain bitterly about this practice. But, we don�t really mean it should stop. The other party needs to treated this way, just not ours.
An entire industry has been build around this mentality- the Tabloids. Fortunes are being build on �the people�s right to know�.
Politicians complain the loudest, but what right do they have to complain? This has been the atmosphere in America for more than THIRTY years. It is by no means a new environment. By now, public officials, politicians and their family�s should KNOW better than to conduct themselves in ways that may later make headlines news.
Jimmy Carter rode into Washington on the public sentiment that America was tired of the allegations and innuendos of wrong doing on the part of the Nixon Adminstration and all the Water Gate fiasco they had going. Carter was known to be a fine and upstanding man and the country was ready for a peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia who taught Sunday School in his Baptist church.
But the country was not ready for his brother, Billy. He was a loud, obnoxios drunk who seemed to be a walking contardiction to everything President Carter said of himself. We all wondered at how it was possible that both these men could have been raised by Miss Lillian, the President�s genteel mother. We learned from that experience that every family has at least one scoundral and that Presidential families are not excluded from having thiers.
I am sure President Carter was more than happy to have had just one brother Billy, who endorsed his own Billy Beer and got arrested for urinating on the side of a federal building.
After the Billy era, Ford had his wife, Betty, whom we found out had a severe drinking problem coupled with an addiction to prescription drugs. When we did learn of it, America embraced her and allowed her those weaknesses. She found strength in our collective bolstering of her and she sought help and got clean. She was out first rehabilitated First lady. She, of course, went on to establish her world reknown Betty Ford Clinic, where the world�s affluent check in for detox.
Ronald Reagan had a worrisome wife as well. She was prone to being stern and heavy handed with the �help� and she was also prone to relying on astrology and all the flimflam people that came with that. It was pondered as to whether some of our legislation was, in fact, being put forth by her read of the stars and their alignments.
Reagan had more to worry about than just Nancy. His own frailty in the onset of Alzhiemer�s disease was troublesome. We spent more time scrutinizing what and where this man proposed spending and what meetings he slept through than the shennanigans of all his children.
Bush was fortunate. By the time he was President, his boys were settled into their own political careers and they were doing alright and his grandchildren were too young to cause any media-attention trouble. Their dog Millie was the only one that got pregnant out of wedlock. The media never got too excited about that. His wife, Barbara, was beloved for being a strong background presence.
Bush�s own inability to speak clearly made him a media caricature. He mainly had to content with that issue as well as his choice of Vice President, Dan Quayle- who was also ridiculed unfairly by the Press for being over exuberent and �youthful�.
Then came the CLINTON ERA. As time goes by, we will learn of how the Press allowed many things the Clinons did slide by without mention. The Clintons were the first �PRESS-IDENTIAL� candidates. The Press believed in the Clinton Agnda and they were careful not to throw too many rocks at them.
Chelsea got very little coverage. To this day, we know very little about this young lady. Historians now write about her less than nice demeanor towards people around her. She is described as being �her mother�s child� and of having a foul mouth. She also got in trouble for the use of alcohol and she was hospitalized on several occasions for a �nervous� conditons during the whole �Monica� ordeal.
The Clinton�s were faring well with the Press until they broke the Press�s number ONE Commandment: THOU SHALL NOT LIE -TO US. Clinton faced the nation and the Press and wagged a finger in our faces in the �I never had relations with THAT woman� speech.
When the Press found out he had lied- it was all over between them and the kid gloves came off.
And now the G.W. Administartion has the TWINS. Twin terrors from Austin, Texas. If you should be fortunate enough to wake up some morning to find that your mommy or daddy is President of the United States, you think you would know better than to get yourself arrested twice in a two month period for trying to purchase alcohol or for getting skunk drunk at a party when you a underage and have no business drinking.
Austin is a party town. That may be problem number one. Whatever it may be, Jenna and Barbara Bush will soon have to face the consequences of their ridiculous and irresponsible actions.
Ironically, their Daddy proposed and set in to legislation the THREE STRIKES program, where offeders automatically go to jail on their third conviction.
Jenna is on STRIKE TWO, with her bases loaded with unexplainably stupid behavior. (she left the Secret Service men in the car while ahe and her sissy went in to a restaurant with a fake ID to try to by a Margarita. We are being asked to be thankful that they would not have been driving!) She could well come up with that THIRD STIRKE by the end of the summer.
Then she will know what Press scrutiny really is. Even though it may not seem fair. They go on about Chelsea�s treatment in the Press and about how Al Gore�s son has gotten TWO DWI�s and NONE of that matters. These girls are THE FIRST CHILDREN now and they have a responsibility to the nation to behave better than they are. It is NOT just OUR Press that is watching them. They do themsleves, their parents and all the Americans their age, whom they represent, a grave disservice. Above all that, history is not very kind. They will go down as being the Billy Carter�s of the G.W. Bush Administration. Perhaps THAT is enough punishment for them. And I would like to see President Bush uphold his word and ensure that his own daughters are made to uphold what he deemed as the ERA OF PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. If it good for the rest of us. It should be good for them as well.