The Bush Daughters. The Reality Of It.

As many of you know I love to read Vanity Fair. I have learned long ago to skim over the anti-war and anti-Bush pieces, because they are always the same. Bush is stupid. The war is stupid. It's almost like those teen magazines that just recycle old articles on what to do about acne or how to get your hair the softest. Vanity fair just recycles the same old Bush bashing issue after issue. But I do love their human interest articles, which is why I read it.

But as I was skimming the latest James Wolcott's bashing of Bush I noticed this slam on the President's daughters and their seeming absence during Bush's second term:

"As for the daughters-they've been completely AWOL, utterly useless. Sure, they have their own lives to lead it's better for humanity that they're not running red lights with Lindsay or Paris."

I'm always amused at Wolcott's complete lack of knowledge (on just about anything) and letting his burning desire to paint all things Bush in the worst possible light, completely ignore the reality of a situation. And it isn't just him, of course. The lefties in the blogosphere just love to perpetuate the notion that the Bush twins are hard drinking party girls.

Although Wolcott and the rest of the lefties would like us to lump the Bush girls with the likes of Lindsay or Paris, the truth is quite different. You see, Mr. Wolcott, the twins do have their own lives to lead. Shall we take a look at how they have been living it?

Jenna graduated with a degree in English. In Summer 2006, Jenna taught at Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School (a school for disadvantaged children) for a year and a half. She is currently teaching at a shelter several days a week as part of an internship for UNICEF's Educational Policy Department in Latin America, specifically in Panama.

Jenna's first book, "Ana's Story"(which just came out) has gotten great reviews. The AP describes it this way:

"Ana's Story" is a short biography of a 17-year-old single mother in Latin America infected with HIV. Bush met Ana, whose real name and hometown are concealed, while working as an intern for the United Nations Children's Fund, better known as UNICEF.

Did you get that last part? Just to be clear. Jenna was an intern for the United Nations Children's Fund, her work included visiting drought stricken Paraguay in 2006.

Let's take a look at the other twin, Barbara Bush. She graduated from Yale with a degree in Humanities. She has been working with a Smithsonian museum in New York. Before that, Barbara had been working with AIDS patients in Africa, Tanzania, South Africa, and Botswana through a program sponsored by Baylor College of Medicine's International Pediatrics AIDS Initiative.

Just for fun, let's compare the girls, raised on that "rich blue blood Republican" way of thinking to another President's young daughter, Chelsea Clinton (a Vanity Fair favorite child). She was raised on the "giving back to humanity" type Democrat beliefs, right? So surely she would out do her compassionate conservative counterparts, right? Ummm... not so much.

After earning a Masters degree at University College in Oxford in international relations, Chelsea join the consulting firm McKinsey and Company in New York City in 2003 earning a six-figure salary. In the fall of 2006, she left McKinsey and went to work for Avenue Capital, a hedge fund run by Marc Lasry, a loyal donor to Democratic causes generally, and heavy supporter of the Clintons. (so says Wikipedia)

What does Chelsea do for the betterment of mankind? How does she help the less fortunate? She serves on the board of the School of American Ballet and has also served as co-chairwoman of a fund-raising weekend for her father’s Clinton Foundation. (Honestly, that is all I could find)

Gosh. Which daughters sound more "Republican" and which more "Democrat?" In Chelsea's case, all things lead back to more money for her parent's political ambitions (and for herself). In the twin's case, all things lead to helping mankind.

I'm just saying. There is perception, and then there is reality. Interesting, is it not?