|
  OPS!
THEY DID IT AGAIN," blares People's cover this week about
"the Bush girls' latest scrape" over a picture of Jenna and Barbara
Bush. People pooh-poohs administration anger, saying they'll
get used to the spotlight. The story on the Bush family is relatively
mild, paired with another feature on other presidential children.
The stories are merely an excuse for the cover, which will blare
about the naughty daughters for a week from every supermarket and
drugstore.
With the Bushes, People's editors are clearly announcing
there's going to be less sensitivity to the family and more sensitivity
to sales numbers. They announced their new standard in this passage:
The
Clintons made it clear that Chelsea was off-limits, and the Bushes
asked that the same consideration be extended to Jenna and Barbara.
Still, the president is the ultimate political celebrity, and the
hunger for news of his family is great. "One day you're at the convention
like one big happy family, and the children are used to show that
the parents understand what families go through," says historian
Douglas Brinkley. "Then something like [the Bush twins' incident]
happens, and now you want us to ignore them after you've introduced
them to the whole world. That's not going to work."
By the standard of Brinkley (whose last major work of history pined
for the exemplary public service of James Earl Carter), the Bush
twins should be completely invisible, and should never show up at
public events where their father in nominated for president or inaugurated
as president. But the Clintons regularly exploited Chelsea before
the mass circulation of People magazine, and by that standard,
should gain much more scrutiny than the publicity-phobic Bush daughters.
At least, readers might conclude, the sophomoric behavior was coming
from 19-year-old daughters, not 52-year-old fathers.
The Clinton years were a glorious time according to People
magazine, and either Bill or Hillary was always making their annual
"Most Intriguing People" list. People publisher Ann Y. Moore
was a Democratic donor. Early Clinton stories were often cowritten
by Nina Burleigh, who would later join Time and infamously
declare that she would have gladly performed sexual favors on Bill
Clinton for keeping abortion legal.
The exploitation of Chelsea began in their pages in the July 20,
1992 issue, where the Clintons laid together in a hammock for happy
summer-sun publicity photos. In between the photos is a now-ridiculous
interview with Clinton, including his thoughts on faith: "The older
you are the more you have an unconscious drive to try to act according
to your convictions and feelings. I think that people, whether they
know it or not, always want more integrity in their life." As for
Hillary's greatest achievement, he declared "I am most proud of
how she's raised Chelsea."
"At the center of their lives is Chelsea," proclaimed People.
"The bright student who has skipped one grade already, she is a
sweet-natured eighth-grader who plays volleyball for her school
and softball for a dentist-sponsored team called the Molar Rollers…Chelsea,
who called the checkout-counter tabloids 'silly,' is embarrassed
by her dad only at ball games when he yells too loud for her team
and jumps up and down." You can read that now, and think "oh Chelsea,
just wait."
But as it carried its always-syrupy coverage of Chelsea into the
muck of Monicagate, People suggested the opposite, that Chelsea
wasn't so naive. In February of 1998, we were told "She's been holding
her head high," and Jesse Jackson, her spiritual counselor, told
the magazine "Her maturity insulates her...she's not fragile." A
year later, People turned to ABC's Dr. Nancy Snyderman, a
frequent guest host of Good Morning America and a longtime
friend of Hillary. "Chelsea has been her mother's strength…She
been bred for it." Naivete wouldn't sell after too many Clinton
profiles (including People's) carried the old Clinton chestnut
that they'd prepared six-year Chelsea for all the awful lies Republicans
would tell her about her tomcatting daddy.
The Clinton White House protested the Hillary and Chelsea cover
on the February 15, 1999 issue: "We deeply regret and are profoundly
saddened by the decision of People magazine to print a cover
story featuring our daughter, Chelsea…. Unfortunately, despite
personal appeals with respect to her privacy and her security from
her parents, People magazine has chosen to run the story.
We can only hope that the media will continue its policy of restraint
with respect to our daughter."
But the protests rang hollow when, unlike the current Bush-daughters
cover, the 3,400-word cover story was chock full of quotes from
Clinton fans, who weren't in the habit of breathing a word to reporters
without explicit permission. In its mawkish tradition, People
raved about the Hillary-Chelsea bond: "In the process, they have
strengthened their relationship that began with the birth of a desperately
wanted child, grew in the shadow of a sometimes troubled marriage,
and was nurtured by a mother whose daughter is not only the focus
of her emotional life, but also her proudest legacy."
The mother and daughter had used their suffering to deepen their
faith. "Chelsea often prays with her mother, having chosen Hillary's
Methodist faith over her Baptist father's. Now in the wake of this
current crisis, 'both Hillary and Chelsea have this inner glow,'
says Rev. Don Jones, who was Hillary's childhood pastor from suburban
Chicago. 'It's as if they've both reached their higher selves.'"
For People, the Clinton women were never more virtuous then
when they'd stood by their man with every calculated public-relations
move, including this People cover story surrounding the Senate
impeachment vote and preceding the coming Juanita Broaddrick rape
story.
People was even hailing Chelsea just last July, with 700
words of syrup about her hostessing a state dinner in Hillary's
place as she ran for the Senate. "We were all raving about her poise,"
said PBS-made multimillionaire Ken Burns. " I was happy to be invited
for dinner with the King, but the highlight of the night was being
around Chelsea. She has her father's all-encompassing intelligence.
She is scary bright."
The White House is finding that it doesn't have to campaign to change
the tone at People magazine. They've already changed their
First Family approach from Clinton damage control to Bush damage.
|
