http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/03/23/jenna_bush/index.html
If Jenna Bush is a pothead, is it news?
The media has been silent about the National Enquirer's recent allegation
that the first daughter is a marijuana user. Is the press giving the drug
war's commander in chief a break?
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By James Pinkerton
March 23, 2001 | Should Jenna Bush, the 19-year-old daughter of the
president, be in jail? Or at least be arrested? That's a conclusion to be
drawn from a recent report in the National Enquirer that asserts she smokes
marijuana. After all, some 600,000 Americans are arrested every year for
marijuana possession -- including about 13,000 teenage girls. Some would say,
of course, that Jenna Bush shouldn't be hassled for allegedly smoking pot,
but then maybe nobody else should either.
The charge that Jenna smokes marijuana is found in the Enquirer's March 20
issue; the tabloid quotes two unidentified fellow students, one of whom says,
"Jenna came over one night and we all did some doobies together. I wouldn't
say she's a major pothead but she likes to toke up when it's around." Can
unnamed sources be trusted? The answer to that question usually depends on
the reputation of the publication.
Starting from a low base, the Enquirer's rep has been rising in recent years.
It had so many scoops on the O.J. Simpson case that even the New York Times
had to acknowledge its journalism; in the Ennis Cosby murder, the reward it
offered broke the case. And just in the past few weeks, it scooped the
establishment media on Jesse Jackson's "love child" and Hugh Rodham's receipt
of $400,000 to influence his brother-in-law on presidential pardons.
One reason the Enquirer gets scoops like these is that it hunts for them,
while other publications are leery of "scandal-mongering." But as media
critic William Powers observed recently in the distinctly unsensationalistic
National Journal, sometimes the real news is scandal: "Despite their
well-known flaws, the tabs are now serious players because they know that
great journalism isn't just about bloodless policy and issue debates. It's
about ethical foibles and hypocrisies of the powerful."
Speaking of the powerful, George W. Bush, who refused to answer questions
about his own drug use during the campaign, now finds himself as commander in
chief of the worldwide drug war, being fought all over the Third World as
well as on Mean Streets, USA. But if the Enquirer's pot-puffing allegation is
to be believed, Bush's own daughter is nevertheless safe and sound, actively
protected by the U.S. Secret Service -- this in the Lone Star State, where
conviction on possession of 2 ounces or less of marijuana leads to a jail
sentence of up to 180 days.
The White House dismisses the Enquirer report as not being worthy of comment.
Noelia Rodriguez, press secretary to the first lady, said only this much on
the record: "Our position on the daughters is that they're private citizens."
Fair enough, although that position doesn't shield others from being hassled
over their activities as private citizens. As the drug war escalates, Uncle
Sam's reach extends further. In 1998, Congress amended the Higher Education
Act in an effort to exclude students with past drug convictions from
receiving financial aid. According to Students for Sensible Drug Policy, some
8,600 college kids have lost some or all of their benefits during the current
school year after revealing a drug conviction on their application form.
Another 278,000 refused to answer the question; Congress is poised to tighten
restrictions further to de-fund those students, too.
In other words, between drug busts and aid cuts, young people and pot is a
big story. So why has there been utter silence -- a database search finds not
a single reference to the Enquirer story in the two weeks since its
publication -- on the Jenna Bush allegation?
Three explanations present themselves. First, reporters have found no
evidence to corroborate the Enquirer's allegation. Fred Zipp, managing editor
of the Austin American-Statesman, said in an interview, "From time to time we
have pursued tips about the behavior of the Bush daughters" -- that is, Jenna
and her twin sister, Barbara -- "but we didn't find anything newsworthy."
A second possibility, of course, is that the major media aren't much
interested in marijuana-crime stories. Why not? Maybe because reporters, who
may have had countercultural-pharmaceutical-type experiences in their own
pasts, tend to empathize with marijuana dabbling. And so journos might not
think that dope smoking is a crime worth getting revved up about. According
to a Pew Center poll released this week, 38 percent of Americans admit
they've experimented with marijuana. Extrapolated to the entire U.S.
population, that's over 100 million experimenters. So maybe the media deserve
credit for realizing that marijuana use is no big deal -- even when,
allegedly, the "criminal" in question is a president's daughter.
A third possibility is that the non-tabloid pressies are simply afraid to
follow the truth if they think it will lead them into trouble. Jane Hall,
professor of journalism at the American University in Washington, observed in
an interview, "It's not going to win reporters any points with the public to
go after this story." But what about the law, which goes after plenty of pot
users? Hall answered by noting the current split between popular culture and
the legal culture: "The American public is forgiving; the penal system is not
forgiving."
Needless to say, President Bush and the entire White House apparat would
probably not feel forgiving toward the media entity that pursued a story
about drug use in his family. That means no state dinner invitations for
Enquirer editor Steve Coz. But it also might leave people wondering what
revelations are being squelched by the reporters and editors who do show up
at presidential fetes.
Who could blame Bush for feeling unforgiving and unfriendly toward those who
would violate his family's privacy? But who could blame any other father for
feeling similarly -- but perhaps unavailingly -- protective toward his own
children as they are drug-busted?
This much is certain: The law is not nearly as forgiving to the nonwhite and
the non-protected. According to the Sentencing Project, African-Americans
account for 13 percent of the drug-using population, but a disproportionate
55 percent of those convicted of drug offenses.
Jenna Bush, of course, has been convicted of nothing. But the legal system
her father now oversees looks increasingly guilty of discrimination against
the weak and hypocrisy in favor of the strong.
And that should be a big story.
- [CTRL] If Jenna Bush is a Pothead, is it News? William Shannon
