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?

By James Pinkerton

Mar 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.

Next Page: Being a "private citizen" doesn't protect other people's daughters

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