First Kids
By Gary Aldrich (01/12/04)
The mainstream media chooses to portray our country’s First Children either negatively or positively, depending on the political party of their parents, the President and First Lady.
How can I make such a sweeping claim? When I wrote my book about the Clinton White House from an insider’s perspective, I included a single paragraph about some behavior and comments made by Chelsea Clinton that I believed best illustrated the Clinton family’s leftist politics, as well as the recklessness with which they treated national security and their own physical security needs.
When certain Liberal writers and pundits read my book and found the Chelsea paragraph, you would have thought I had pushed Mother Teresa into the path of a speeding bus. They were absolutely incensed that I would ever write anything negative about Miss Clinton! Oh, the horror! The shame!
In fact, of all the media research I conducted on the Clinton family, I found only positive comments regarding Chelsea. I also found reports concerning Hillary Clinton’s insistence that no reporter ever dare to bother the president and first lady’s child. Hillary’s request – and that’s all that it was (after all, this is the United States, not some Marxist dictatorship) – was followed to the letter, and no articles were written about Chelsea’s behavior unless they were very complimentary.
Because of my friendly relationships with White House staff and Secret Service agents, I knew otherwise. I knew Chelsea behaved like a normal teenager—except for her rudeness and aggression toward the Secret Service agents who would have given their lives to protect her.
In one comment directed toward two agents that particularly annoyed her, Chelsea referred to them as her “personally trained pigs,” and told them that she was just repeating what her mother and father had said about them.
“Pig” was an insult usually reserved for law enforcement officers by members of the New-Left in the 1960s and 1970s. The New-Left perfected this epithet at riots and protests on college campuses, at Black Panther Party meetings, or simply to incite local or federal law enforcement officials.
These classy folks even spit on the officers before or after the insult – or during, depending on their level of hatred.
Those who attacked me for mentioning Chelsea’s name reacted with incredible hypocrisy, considering the various critics of Nixon’s, Reagan’s, and George H.W. Bush’s children. I recall reading many negative articles about the children of Republican presidents, although I am certain each president or first lady requested their kids be left out of politics.
In the case of Republicans, it seems, such requests are ignored. One example is the article appearing in Wednesday’s Washington Post Style Section. The headline reads, “Laura’s Girls,” and takes up most of the front page. Included are three color photos of President Bush’s daughters. These had to be the worst pictures the Post staff could find in their archives. One has Barbara looking insolent and threatening while the other has Jenna with her mouth agape, wearing sinister-looking sunglasses, also looking perturbed.
The third picture illustrates just how far the Post thinks the Bush administration is willing to go to protect the First Daughters’ privacy – an aide is helping one of them to the helicopter while shielding her from the camera with two garment bags. Apparently the mainstream media thinks President Bush’s young daughters have an obligation to pose for pictures whenever an obnoxious photo dog wants them to.
The article was occasioned by the release of a new book entitled “The Perfect Wife,” written by Ann Gerhart and published this week by Simon & Schuster. I don’t know, but the title seems to sneer at Laura Bush’s decision to “stay home and have teas and bake cookies.”
So maybe in order to take revenge on President and Laura Bush, there is an entire book devoted to such important fare about their daughters as the time one was attired in worn corduroy, or the other who was seen (gasp!) with a cigarette in her hand! Was she also standing in a no-smoking section?
Meanwhile, a recently released Zogby poll has determined that young, unmarried women are more likely to vote Democrat. Let’s see, a salacious book written about two youthful girls who are cutting up, and giving their Conservative parents fits, while they hoist a beer and rebel? Isn’t this exactly the liberal conduct favored and promoted by Democrats? If so, why is Ann Gerhart and the Washington Post seemingly unhappy with Barbara and Jenna Bush’s behavior?
Or is this new cheap-shot book and the Post article hyping it just another attempt to “slap” and injure a popular president and his first lady?
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