This is starting to look like a more serious problem than undregrad high-jinks.

Wednesday, 30 May, 2001, 18:15 GMT 19:15 UK

Bush's daughter in more booze trouble

Jenna has already been punished for under-age drinking

Jenna Bush, the daughter of President George W Bush, has got herself into more trouble over under-aged drinking.

Jenna, a 19-year-old first-year student at the University of Texas, was caught trying to buy alcohol at a Mexican restaurant in Austin on Tuesday evening.

She was using an ID belonging to somebody else, according to police.

The legal drinking age in Texas is 21.

Earlier this month, Bush pleaded no contest to a charge of being a minor in possession of alcohol after police found her drinking beer in an Austin bar.

She was ordered to perform eight hours of community service and take an alcohol awareness course.

-- Anonymous, May 30, 2001

Answers

The first time, my reaction, and I suspect the reaction of most, was BFD. But one would have expected caution after that, so as not to embarrass her father. So something seems amiss with the young lady.

-- Anonymous, May 31, 2001

Yup, she needs some help. You'd think Dad, with his background, would have picked up on that (or at least that his handlers would have).

-- Anonymous, May 31, 2001

So Jenna is a drunken sot wannabe. I'll toast to that.

-- Anonymous, May 31, 2001

Alcohol is a drug, and alcoholism is a drug addiction, simple as that. Any addiction is a tough nut to crack, as anyone knows who has ever fought one out. I have some personal experience in alcohol problems that have tormented some members of my own family. My heart goes out to Dubya on this one and it's not nice for the media to make fun of his daughter regarding her struggle.

Also, let's not forget that the Secret Service guys, or at least some of them, were getting boozed up in Dallas the night before JFK got wacked, so we can't automatically expect them to be on top of this.

-- Anonymous, May 31, 2001

If you want some good comic relief, the cover of the Weekly World News I saw today has their "Batboy" mutant in love with Jenna.

-- Anonymous, May 31, 2001

Give the girl's a break, jeez... 19, in college, a little rebelious, want to party a bit before they finally have to grow up...

So they're normal, what's the big deal?

-- Anonymous, May 31, 2001

Gosh, Firemouse, a possible romance between Jenna and Batboy! Wonder what W will say to that. (For one thing, I wonder if Batboy is a committed Christian.)

-- Anonymous, June 02, 2001

Maybe Dubya would say, "At least she's straight"?

party

He r daddy likes straight, you know

Who's going to break the news about the White House intransigence to Mary Cheney? I wonder if this will finally make those Log Cabin Republicans get off their knees and come to their senses?

(I only slept with a Republican once, and he converted his voter registration to Democrat right after. I haven't as far as I know slept with Batboy or other mutants. Not physical mutants rather than counter-cultural ones, at any rate).

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

Houston Chron

June 4, 2001, 12:54AM

The 411 on Chuy's decision to call 911

By JOHN WILLIAMS Copyright 2001 Houston Chronicle

The first call from Chuy's restaurant at 10:45 p.m. Tuesday went to the 911 dispatcher in Austin.

The emergency? Two underage women wanted alcoholic beverages. One had an I.D. of another person old enough to drink.

It may be the first time a restaurant has considered underage drinking worthy of an emergency call in the home of the state's biggest university, said Becky Stewart, emergency services director for the Capital Area Planning Council. CAPCO manages Austin's regional 911 system.

But the two in question had familiar names. They were Jenna and Barbara Bush, the president's 19-year-old twin daughters.

Perhaps the call is understandable. No big-dollar restaurant wants to risk its liquor license by serving alcohol to someone under 21.

Tip for newsmen questionable

The second call from Chuy's management, however, is harder to defend.

Chuy's tipped the Austin American-Statesman to the scoop about the president's partying scofflaws. Amid deadline pressure and ethical questions, the newspaper didn't print a report until Thursday.

By then, the Bush family affair, rightly or wrongly, was everybody's business. It went international. Chuy's was mentioned in newspapers worldwide.

"That can't be bad for business," mused an Austin political consultant and frequent Chuy's diner.

The success story of the restaurant chain may shed a little more light.

Chuy's was started by Michael Young and John Zapp in a city that loves its Mexican food. Young has been the main mover and shaker, helping expand the restaurant chain to Houston, Dallas, Arlington and San Antonio, and starting other profitable businesses.

Described by one friend as having a Willie Nelson grin, Young is a laid-back Austin denizen and minor Democratic player in Travis County politics.

Young has strong opinions and occasionally attends party fund-raisers, though acquaintances said he has not taken front-line positions on any major issues.

He has an amazing ability to get attention for his restaurant.

When Kenneth Starr was investigating the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky affair, Chuy's sold more than 1,000 T-shirts with a cartoon of Clinton shaking his finger and saying, "I did not have Tex-Mex with that woman."

Young also appeared for free in a Southwest Airlines commercial with the airline's legendary boss, Herb Kelleher. Young got the gig, which garnered free publicity for his restaurants, through adman Roy Spence, a friend and business partner who runs in Democratic circles.

Last year, Spence and Young joined others to create Glazing Saddles Ltd., which owns the Krispy Kreme doughnut shops in Austin and San Antonio.

"I like Michael because he has built a culture where his people do the right thing, they are a big family," Spence said. "His people serve the customers right, they prepare the food right, they take care of business right."

Twins' actions hard to explain

Was it right to dial 911? Many eateries might have refused to serve the Bush daughters and left it at that.

The twins' behavior is likewise hard to defend or explain. The incident came two weeks after Jenna Bush made national headlines when she pleaded no contest to an earlier underage drinking charge. Did they believe no one in Austin would recognize them, or notice the Secret Service agents nearby?

The White House has described the incidents as private family matters. If the twins' mother, first lady Laura Bush, and grandmother, former first lady Barbara Bush, decide to apply a dose of old-fashioned tough love, it couldn't be any more painful than Thursday's front-page headline in the New York Post: "Jenna and Tonic. Bush daughter in new booze incident as twin sister watched."

For Chuy's, it's a different matter. Perhaps the restaurant management, with its Democratic ties, is privately reveling in the Republican first family's public embarrassment.

The restaurant did not return calls about its decision to publicize the incident.

But Thursday afternoon, the restaurant released a statement -- or more precisely, an understatement: "We sincerely regret any inconvenience this has caused the first family."

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

Time was we used to screen people pretty thoroughly to see if anyone who could influence the President or the governing of the country had anything unseemly in their private lives. Not just for the sake of embarassment, but because their indiscretions could make them vulnerable to blackmail or other coercive pressure.

Secret Service clearly doesn't have a mandate to "protect" this immature little girl from the consequences of her own behavior. If she is this irresponsible in her public behavior, what is she doing in her private behavior, and who influences her that we haven't yet heard of?

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

That Bat-boy article

Wahoo, World Weekly News is online!

-- Anonymous, June 12, 2001

LOL

-- Anonymous, June 12, 2001