Should presidential family members

April 27, 2001 5:06 PM

Should presidential family members be protected from press scrutiny when they break the law? Does majority matter? Will they lose the opportunity for federal aid if they get busted with a joint?
posted by Bezuhin (16 comments total)

Wow. That's alot of questions.
posted by milnak at 5:11 PM on April 27, 2001

I think the attorney general should appoint a special prosecutor.
posted by Postroad at 5:15 PM on April 27, 2001

careful, people here ain't too keen on that topic.
posted by donkeysuck at 5:16 PM on April 27, 2001

How exactly do you figure she was protected from press scrutiny? She got caught, the press reported it. Sounds like the First Amendment in action to me.

On a totally different tangent, these two are starting to remind me of the old Patty Duke Show; one good twin, one bad twin. Here's the classic theme song lyrics, here's the alternative lifestyle version.
posted by MrBaliHai at 5:20 PM on April 27, 2001

The most fun you can have, short of being arrested

Plumm> this is gonna hurt
BryanL> We're so screwed.
mgrasso> between the canadian and scottish accents, we're in for quite a tour de force
BryanL> This is a serious fucking bug hunt. And the presence of Take Five isn't fucking HELPING!
Plumm> oh, dear god
BryanL> I sense 80 seconds to wackiness ensuing.
mgrasso> uh, bry? game over, man.
mgrasso> game over.
mgrasso> bug hunt. goddamn abso-fucking-lutely right.
my-crow-soft> i couldn't think it would get any worse,
Plum> the secret landing in 5
Plum> 4
Plum> 3
Plum> 2
Plum> 1
Plum> SECRET
BryanL> Anyone wanna bet she gets covered in food before this movie ends?
BryanL> See the plate?
BryanL> Here it comes...
BryanL> Wait for it....
mgrasso> i see food!
Ironf> Bingo!
mgrasso> pie shoving!
BryanL> WHO'S YOUR DADDY! WHO'S YOUR HOMEGAME DADDY!
BryanL> SAY IT!
posted by tiaka at 5:26 PM on April 27, 2001

Thanks, bezuhin, for tying this into federal student aid. Jenna Bush has already been caught in this type of situation once before. Arianna Huffington's article in Salon makes a good point: why does rape, arson, burglary etc. not disqualify you from getting federal student aid when drug possesion does? Are only kids well-off enough to pay for college outright entitled to "youthful indiscretions?"
posted by Gilbert at 9:13 PM on April 27, 2001

Maybe Shrub can be called up for contributing to the delinquency of a minor?
posted by owillis at 10:20 PM on April 27, 2001

the other twin isn't "good" either. she's been caught several times trying to get into clubs or getting kicked out of clubs in nyc for being underage. she's also ditched her ss men and forced them into high speed chases under dangerous road conditions a couple of times.
posted by centrs at 11:27 PM on April 27, 2001

Simple: her father signs an executive order to lower the age of consent to a sensible age, and one element of tbe kids' criminality vanishes in a puff of governance. And no, this is me being serious here.

One random thought, though: does the threatened removal of federal aid from those with unspent drug convictions mean, more or less, that colleges in the US will be divided along class lines, between those wealthy enough to be able to indulge and still pay the tuition bills, and those forced into an unnatural undergraduate temperance by their financial situation? Sounds like unequal fucking protection to me, bucko.
posted by holgate at 12:36 AM on April 28, 2001

Car chases? Ditching the chaperone to sneak into a club as an underage juvenile delinquent? And y'all are calling them good or evil twins? Sheesh! Sounds like a couple well-adapted life-seeking 21st century young people to me. If their daddy really loved them, he wouldn't have gone into a life of public service and celebrity in the first place. He knew how this was gonna affect his family when he ventured into politics. And he didn't care. His daddy did the same thing to him. Bush's daughters are playing too nice. They should poison their SS guys at the first opportunity, ditch the bodies in a river and hightail it out of the country to Amsterdam.

As for the original questions:

Should presidential family members be protected from press scrutiny when they break the law?
That's first ammendment territory. If the press suddenly wanted to hound YOU tomorrow, whoever you are, and put intimate details of your life on everything from Jerry Springer to 60 Minutes, you'd have little recourse. The same should go for Shrub's kids.

Does majority matter?
Nope. The majority in this country don't vote, so they don't matter.

Will they lose the opportunity for federal aid if they get busted with a joint?
How come Bush's daughters are getting federal aid at all? Can't he afford to pay every cent himself? Couldn't that federal aid go to the less fortunate? Yeah I know. My democrat roots are showin'.

I still believe all drug laws should be writ off the books along with any government aid or insurance claims regarding drug abuse. You can dope up all ya's want but be willing to suffer the consequences. That'd be freedom and pursuit of happiness for ya. But of course, that's one reason why I'll never be nominated president.
posted by ZachsMind at 2:20 AM on April 28, 2001

/ / / / / / / / / <---- some lines of Coke for Dubbya. :)
posted by GrooveJedi at 8:12 AM on April 28, 2001

Dude(s), I don't know about executive orders lowering the age of consent or anything like that, but speaking as a grad-u-ate of one of the snobiest, eliteist, liberal arts schools in the US, it's my experience that higher education in the US is already nicely stratified along class lines.

I transfered around among various state and private schools before landing at the place. It was full of tortured artistic souls and dreadlocked trustafarians, with a handful of hardcore geeks and future lecherous professors, but almost everyone came from an upper-middle class background or above. There was definitely a disconnect between the institution's rhetoric of equality and fraternity (although there were no fraternities) and the economic background of the faculty and student body. Watching rich kids and professors "agitate" for worker's rights always brightened my mood.

Not that I am bitter though, high quality drugs were always available for reasonable prices and I just adore my $100,000 poster.
posted by estopped at 9:54 AM on April 28, 2001

The same should go for Shrub's kids

Again, I don't see anything here that would suggest some sort of concerted conspiracy to prevent the press from going after the Shrubbettes. So the White House refuses to comment, big deal.

How come Bush's daughters are getting federal aid at all?

Are they? I may have missed it, but there doesn't seem to be anything in this news item (or Arianna Huffington's Salon piece) that suggests that they're receiving any. If they were, I agree that'd be pretty hypocritical.
posted by MrBaliHai at 9:54 AM on April 28, 2001

1. I wasn't implying that they currently receive federal financial aid, but the query was whether they would be prosecuted for possession and actually lose their ability to qualify for such aid.

2. I wasn't saying that the press ignores the First Twins, just that they have a general hands off policy w/r/t serious coverage of them. Amy Carter was dogged by the press, while Chelsea was left alone by the press. I distinguish the two by saying that Chelsea was only 12 when Clinton entered office, so it was fair and legitimate to leave her alone. The Twins, however, are past the age of majority, and, like everyone else, there is no justification for their actions to be shielded from media scrutiny. If municipalities can legitimately run the names of johns busted for solicitation in the newspaper, then why aren't the Twins equally public?

3. There could be no executive order lowering the age of consent because age of consent is a matter regulated by state governments and over which the federal government has no direct authority.

4. I doubt the financial aid/drug conviction law would be found to violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment because 1) it generally applies to the states only; and 2) the law is not facially discriminatory. If one were to argue that the effects of the aw are discriminatory, the Supreme Court ruled last week that a law cannot be challenged as violating the 1964 Civil Rights Act just because it has discriminatory effects -- the law itself must be discriminatory.

5. Did you go to law school, estopped?
posted by Bezuhin at 10:50 AM on April 28, 2001

What's Jenna doin' with her Bush? The good name she's been given? I must say, she is the most unattainable, attractive, vacuous person I've ever had the pleasure to stereotype.

Were it not for the Bush she has for a name, she'd be the girl we'd be talking about for years after high school:

i.e.

"I still can't believe she slept with Coach Anderson."

"No shit. I don't know if it's true. But I believe it. She seemed like that kind of girl."

Wait. . .I bet that shit's just starting to get around. She's only 19.
posted by crasspastor at 11:54 PM on April 28, 2001

I think the behavior of the Bush children should be meat for public discourse only as far as it applies to the hypocritical position their biological male parent has taken toward parents and accountability. Seems that according to his behavior, there was little parental control and this proud tradition has been passed down to yet another generation. What steams me are statements like the one made after the school shooting in San Diego by Bush. The man has NO room to disrespect good parents across this country because of such newsworthy events.
posted by nofundy at 7:30 AM on April 30, 2001