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As a principle, I believe, journalistic scrutiny should exempt the politician's spouse and children. However, I also think journalists must intrude into this zone of privacy the moment they inject themselves into politics, as the twins did by speaking at the Republican National Convention and as Laura routinely does. Because of Laura Bush's higher approval ratings relative to her husband, she is becoming increasingly involved in a role that goes well beyond that of a supportive spouse. Thus, I think we need to subject her to the same standard of scrutiny that is given to any politician. When Laura was 17 years old, she was involved in a car accident that took the life of her boyfriend Michael Dutton Douglas. I don't think any malice was involved in the death, any more than I think malice was involved in Teddy Kenendy's Chappaquiddick incident. On the other hand, there does seem to parallels in terms of the suppression of truth in general and the legal consequences in particular. In Kennedy's case, his license was suspended. In Laura's case, there were no charges. I find it hard to believe that there were no legal implications at all. I suspect if I was a poor black man and I killed someone under the same circumstances, the legal consequnces in that time and place would have been different. Perhaps I would still be in jail. That happened a long time ago, but the girl is the mother to the woman. And it disturbs me that in her supportative comments to her husband today, I see a basic lack of compassion to the least among us, as in this exchange on the death penalty. If Laura does have a position that differs from her husband on the taking of life in the electric chair or from bombs over Iraq, she clearly hasn't had any influence on her husband. It's more likely that she agrees with her husband on GOP pro death issues, and the accident in which she was involved decades is now so compartmentalized in her life, it has no effect whatever on her thinking of fundamental policy questions. In a story like this, the response usually follows a preditable path, as follows: 1. It's not true. 2. It's not relevant. 3. It's old news. In politics, there is no old news, so long as it's true and it's relevant. The truth is indisputable, and Laura, as an ambassador of the Party of Life, makes it relevant and news. |