Jenna an entrepreneur, author, producer, and former adult film actress.I don’t envy Jenna and Barbara Bush, going off to college under the watchful eye of the Secret Service and the international media.But the sudden flurry of headlines about the first twins’ alcohol-related mishaps raises new questions about the way their father handled his own “young and irresponsible” past.
But now it seems it was a bad choice for Bush as a father.
After his 1976 drunken-driving arrest was revealed last year, Bush said he didn’t admit it when he decided to run for president because he didn’t want his daughters to know about it.
That was a mistake, and the twins’ recent run of bad behavior seems designed to let him know that.
There’s no evidence either twin has a drinking problem, but the string of news items involving their partying and scrapes with the law in the last few months can’t be ignored.
First came the tale of Secret Service agents ferrying home Jenna’s boyfriend after he was arrested for public drunkenness.
Then there were randy National Enquirer photos of Jenna, a University of Texas freshman, and a beer-drinking pal, and a story about her alleged marijuana use. In April, the Enquirer featured a lurid tale of Barbara’s drunken spring-break binge in Mexico, and by the end of the month all major newspapers were carrying a story about Jenna being cited by police at an Austin bar for underage drinking, while Secret Service agents waited outside.
Yale freshman Barbara, supposedly the studious twin, had a false I. Now, barely a week after a court appearance to deal with that alcohol citation, Jenna has been caught again using a false I. to buy alcohol at an Austin restaurant, with sister Barbara at her side.
Of course, many of us would have provided lively tabloid fodder in college if we’d been subjected to the scrutiny Barbara and Jenna Bush must endure.
And their college drinking doesn’t mean they’ll turn into alcoholics as adults.
Most teenage party girls become responsible citizens, eventually.
Still, their recklessness in the first months of their father’s presidency suggests their parents screwed up by downplaying and even denying President Bush’s own drinking problem.