Part of the deal when it comes to The Daily Routine is that those who wait breathlessly for the latest in the JonBenet Ramsey saga, or which relative is dissing whom in the murder case of Robert Blake’s better half, or any other such story that is 99 percent gossip, will forever leave this table unfed.
Our society has become so addicted to the comings, goings, doings and sayings of the well-known-for-being-well-known that it is one of the reasons Big Media does such an abysmal job of informing the American people about what’s really going on in their world. When you only have 110 minutes each week to tell people the news, and you have to spend 45 of those minutes gossiping about somebodies who would be nobodies if this were a just world, you naturally shortchange the important stuff. Fortunately, that lowest-common-denominator audience is so well served by the unthinking liberals of Big Media that alternatives are able to flourish by bucking the trend.
Sometimes, though, a gossip story arises that touches, however lightly, on important events. One of these was the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit, and another was the perjury committed by then-President Clinton in a deposition for the Jones lawsuit. Sadly, gossip and prurient detail became a matter of constitutional importance when the question of perjury was investigated — not because the Independent Counsel wanted to write an X-rated report to Congress, but because the perjury in question happened to be about a sexual matter and he could not pursue the case without asking questions that Kenneth Starr would not have wanted asked of his daughter (if he has one).
The boundary between gossip and substance can be a touchy one, but the Monica Lewinsky matter helped to pin it down somewhat.
Where, then, does the line fall when it comes to Jenna Bush?
As a daughter of the President of the United States, her comings, goings, doings and saying are only of consequence in light of a nation’s natural tendency to regard the families of the powerful as part of a national family — just as other celebrities are regarded as members of an extended national neighborhood. Jenna Bush has no power over policy, no power to order the boys and girls in uniform into harm’s way for reasons good or otherwise. The value, such as it is, of the emphasis some are placing on Miss Bush’s adolescent efforts to procure alcohol, lies entirely in the discomfiture it is expected to inflict on the President and First Lady.
George and Laura need no advice from me about Jenna’s misbehavior, but if I were George I would inform Jenna that since Texas law calls for six months’ jail time in the event of a third offense, she should not expect her father’s position to shelter her from that consequence should it arise. It would be the right thing to do as a father, and as a President. Using the presidency to protect her from such consequences, however, would be an abuse of power, and that would be a legitimate story.
Unless and until such an abuse happens, that’s all I have to say about the case — and I honestly doubt anyone else has more. That’s not likely to stop Big Media from whipping up story after story about it, but those who hunger for such empty confections won’t find them here.
