PRESIDENT STRANGLES TEEN



Well, not really:

In a moment largely unnoticed by the throngs of people in Lebanon waiting for autographs from the president of the United States, George W. Bush stopped to hold a teenager's head close to his heart.

Lynn Faulkner, his daughter, Ashley, and their neighbor, Linda Prince, eagerly waited to shake the president's hand Tuesday at the Golden Lamb Inn. He worked the line at a steady campaign pace, smiling, nodding and signing autographs until Prince spoke:

"This girl lost her mom in the World Trade Center on 9-11."

Bush stopped and turned back.

"He changed from being the leader of the free world to being a father, a husband and a man," Faulkner said. "He looked right at her and said, 'How are you doing?' He reached out with his hand and pulled her into his chest."

Faulkner snapped one frame with his camera.

"I could hear her say, 'I'm OK,' " he said. "That's more emotion than she has shown in 21/2 years. Then he said, 'I can see you have a father who loves you very much.' "

"And I said, 'I do, Mr. President, but I miss her mother every day.' It was a special moment."

George knows the merits of being a good father.

Maybe that's why he's skipping both his daughters' graduations.

There are a couple of things in this article that I'd like to mention:

"There are no plans at this time to attend these ceremonies," said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for Laura Bush. "The Bushes felt the focus should be on the students, and not how long the lines are to go through the metal detectors."

Doesn't that happen whenever a senior administration official makes a commencement speech at a university? Heck, maybe Laura should have told Dick Cheney about that whole "focus on the students" thing before he went to Fulton and threw mud at John Kerry for an hour.

Mrs. Bush told CNN in February that her 22-year-old daughters may help with their father's re-election campaign. "They are terrific girls. They are getting ready to graduate from college, and we'll see when they graduate," Mrs. Bush said. "You know, this will be really their first campaign that their dad has run that they are really old enough to be involved."

Well they were voting-age in 2000. They'll probably stay out of the campaign again, you know, to prevent Dubya from having to answer the Ashton question.

The sisters were freshmen when their father was seeking the presidency in 2000. They have stayed out of the media spotlight, except for an underage drinking incident at an Austin bar when they were 19.

Chelsea Clinton stayed out of the spotlight too. She got a bachelor's from Stanford and a Rhodes Scholarship. People don't irrationally hate the Bush twins. People do, however, irrationally hate Chelsea. People don't call the Bush twins "the White House dogs". I wish people like Derbyshire, Limbaugh and others woke up one morning, looked at themselves in the mirror, and asked their reflection why they have animosity towards people like Chelsea Clinton who never did anything to them or anybody.

Somehow, the two stories meant for this post got me thinking about these double standards. There's an obvious double-standard for the above photo, no doubt.