http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010530/us/bush_daughter_1.html
This girl is becoming to come off as pretty dense. I don’t think it’s wrong for a 19 year old girl to have a beer, but shouldn’t she realize that she is becoming well-known and that she can’t continue to get away with buying alcohol and/or drinking in public places? The daughter of the President should know better than trying stupid tricks with other people’s ID cards.
LOL. That’s the Bush’s for ya. At least one of them is trying to do some sort of drug at all times.
I think this points up the stupidity and hypocracy of American attitudes towards alcohol. On the one hand, we’re shocked, shocked that a 19 year old is drinking. On the other hand, we know that ~90% of 19 year olds are drinking.
I think the drinking age of 21 is a major disaster. Let’s lower it to 16. Although I usually jingoistically and blindly believe in America’s superiority, this is one area where Europeans are far far far more intelligent than we are.
I think this points to the stupidity of Jenna Bush. This isn’t about whether the current drinking age makes sense or not, in my OP I made that clear. The fact is Jenna Bush is a well-known person who made national news by being busted for underage drinking and she got caught AGAIN only weeks after the first time. This is stupid.
What is the drinking age in Europe? All i know is that in Canada it is lower than 21.
Our country is stupid in alot of areas. For example, our president. Another example, guns are legal, and marijauna is illegal. Ask yourself, which is more harmful?
On one hand, I want to say that a drinking age of 16 will drastically lower America’s teenage population (not necessarily a BAD thing, but…), but OTOH, maybe the reason so many dumb teens get blasted is because of the old “I’m not supposed to do this, so it must be a great thing” attitude.
I’m 20 and I serve somewhat proudly in the Air Force. Ask me how mad it makes me that TOMORROW, I could get orders to go to Korea, Saudi, or Turkey…but I can’t buy a damn beer.
I think it’s time we take a stand…
Ok now im fired up.
What’s funny is, you only have to be 18 to smoke cigarettes, something much more deadly than alcohol, and yet you have to be 21 to drink alcohol. Marijuana is illegal altogether, and it isn’t as nearly as harmful as alcohol or cigarettes!! WTF?!
God damn the government really pisses me off. Everyone vote me into office, and i’ll change the rules.
No Badtz, it IS important that 19year olds don’t drink. I live in a college town and binge drinking is the biggest health problem on campus. Students across the nation are dying from alcohol poisoning because of the culture of binge drinking on campuses. And Jenna is obviously deep into this culture. Sure kids are going to drink. But in many schools, it is the central focus. And particularly at Texas A&M. It’s a party school. Something besides drinking should be the focus. Something like, oh, let me think… EDUCATION?!?
Furthermore, Jenna’s drinking is now an issue of presidential politics. When Dubya’s arrest for DWI came to light, he hid behind the skirts of his daughters and claimed that he had concealed the arrest from the public because he had never told his children. And he never told his children so that they might not be encouraged to repeat his mistakes. Perhaps if he had discussed this issue with his children in an honest manner, his daughters would not be repeating his mistakes. This raises serious questions about Dubya’s ability to lead the country, when he can’t even provide leadership for his family.
As I understand it, Jenna’s previous arrest requires her to pass an alcohol education program. She failed. Throw her in jail. That’s what would happen to any average citizen.
I also remind people that under directives of the Bush administration, people who have been arrested (and not even convicted) of even the most minor drug offense are prohibited from receiving financial aid for college. This makes a college education impossible for thousands of students. But not Jenna, who has a free ride through life. This shows the Bush administration’s hypocracy, it is OK to booze your way through college, but if you are just ACCUSED of drug posession, even if you’re innocent, you are denied an opportunity to improve yourself. Even convicted murderers in jail are entitled to Pell Grants to take college courses, but oh no, not that boy who got caught with a joint.
Um, a LOT more people die each year of alcohol overdoses than nicotine overdoses (or any other kind of overdose). If you are talking about long-term effects, plenty of people die of alcohol-related diseases later in life too.
I agree about pot. But I believe that alcohol is probably the most dangerous recreational drug that is commonly used.
It’s 18 in Ireland, and it is enforced (well, it is in central Dublin anyway … I imagine you’d find a lot more younger teens in the countryside village pubs). There are just as many problems here with binge drinking in that 18-21 group … less drink-driving problems, but few 18-21 year olds here have cars … so I don’t think the law really makes that much of a difference.
Still, I think old enough to die for your country in some far off jungle/desert/Balkan state = old enough to have a beer in a pub.
Let’s here it for politics:
Police were called? Cause a minor tried to use a fake ID? Fer Chrissakes! I hate GW, but this is just a little excessive, don’t you think? What ever happened to “Sorry, that’s obviously fake/not you, so we aren’t going to serve you.” end of incident. Want to bet that the restaurant didn’t call the cops?
GRRRR… HEAR it for politics…
I think it’s an unwritten rule that any President must have at least one close relative who’s totally screwed up, or who at least is somewhat of an embarassment.
It must be tough for Jenna Bush, with virtually everyone knowing who she is and what she looks like, to get a fake ID that would actually fool anyone. If she wants to get drunk, her best option would be to get the booze through a trusted third party…like slip a little extra tip to one of those Secret Service agents. (Granted, those agents are technically sworn to uphold the law, so it might be best to check with another third party.)
Of course, it always seemed to me that in college, the heaviest drinkers on average were the freshmen. Some people drink because they like it, some drink just to go along with the crowd, and some drink because it’s “forbidden”. I think that as people get closer to the legal drinking age, and when they reach it, they’re more inclined to drink only if they really like it…or if they’re alcoholics.
Ahem.
Jenna goes to the University of Texas at Austin. For the sake of your health, never confuse UT Austin with Texas A&M.
With 38,000 undergraduates at each of the schools, there are a lot of alumni walking around. 
That being said, Jenna doesn’t serve as one of the prouder examples for my alma mater. In her defense, though, Chuy’s (where the incident took place) makes a great margarita. I got through about 7 at my bachelor’s party before we even started partying. Rare form.
Anyway, it is ridiculous that our drinking age is 21. It seems to be just another one of those policies passed as knee-jerk legislation. If there is a problem, rather than address the causes, make the laws more draconian. This applies in many segments of American society besides drug/alcohol laws. We have managed to create an environment where sound legislation (like rehab or increased education or vocational programs in prisons) is always seen as being “soft on crime.” Pisses me off.
Even though I am as bleeding heart liberal as they come, I will defend the Bushlet on this one to a certain extent. He has a 19 year old daughter. She likes to have a good time. She wants to show her visiting sister some of the great college life she is having in Austin rather than at stuffy Yale. So she takes her buddy’s ID to the bar and buys a couple of margaritas. Most bartenders would take one look at the ID and laugh. She gets the cops phoned on her ass, and front page news on CNN. The Bushlet cannot be held responsible for this in any way, shape, or form : he has done a commendable job of keeping his girls out of the media spotlight and out of serious trouble. 19 year olds screw up. 19 year olds are stupid, probably because their bodies can tolerate stupidity. That’s what they are good at.
As to focusing on education – Do you really think that a 21 year old drinking age is an effective way to do this? My buddies and I got lit just about every weekend in college, from 18 years old to 22 years old. All that happened when we turned 21 was that we could get shithoused and limp home from the neighborhood bar instead of somebody’s apartment. My buddies and I now all have masters and graduate degrees. I work across the street from Rice University now. Those kids party harder than I ever did, yet it manages to be ranked within the top 15 schools in the nation every year.
So what needs to be done? Probably nothing. Maybe this is Jenna’s passive aggressive way against arguing against a 21 year old drinking age. Or maybe she is doing performance art in protest over the Artic National Wildlife Reserve or National Missile Defense. I say go to it, girl! Give us liberal ex-Austinites a reason to be proud!
I’d tell that to the 19 year old student at my university who got alcohol poisoning last year, except I can’t because HE’S DEAD.
I’ve heard that Jenna is not only a heavy drinker, she also tokes up occasionally and is very promiscuous. Sounds like my kind of girl!
Chas, you want to thow Jenna Bush in jail? Really? Do 90% of 18-21 year-olds belong in jail then? Because that’s what we’d have to do if we actually enforced our ludicrous laws against drinking (yes, and marijuana too).
Yes, binge drinking is a huge problem. And alcohol is illegal under 21. That does approximately zero to stop binge drinking. Alcohol could be pure poison, the question is whether making it illegal makes the situation better or worse.
And it is NOT true that the average person who did what Jenna Bush did would be in prison. The average person who did what Jenna Bush did would be served a margarita, not arrested.
I’m not a drinker, but even straight-laced as I was, I managed to drink a half-dozen or so beers before my 21st birthday. Should I have gone to jail? Would it have improved my life, or improved everyone else’s life? How would America be a better country if Jenna Bush serves some jail time for this incident?
Chas.E
Many cases of alcohol poisoning come from fraternity hazing or likewise situations. There is good reason that hazing is illegal. It uses a mob mentality to force someone into a situation that they wouldn’t ordinarily agree to. Acceptance is one of the most powerful emotions, and easily overrides common sense, especially for a new student in an unfamiliar place looking for friends.
Sure there are cases not related to fraternity hazing. Sure drunk driving would definitely be an issue if the drinking age was lowered. But I can’t see how maturity not to get into these situations somehow magically appears between 18 and 21.
I posit that the actual mechanics of the poisoning had more to do with factors secondary to the illegality of alcohol (e.g. binge drinking because of limited access to alcohol and peer pressure because it is a rebellious thing to do) and less to do with the actual alcohol. I think that a healthy European attitude towards alcohol will reduce these incidents far more than keeping the drinking age at 21.
Lemur, yes I absolutely DO want Jenna in jail. I didn’t say prison, I said jail. It is absolutely typical for repeat alcohol offenders who violate the terms of their plea bargain to be resentenced. I know several persons who served 15 to 30 days in jail under conditions astonishingly similar to Jenna’s. And they deserved it. Even THEY admitted they deserved it, once they sobered up and looked back at their wasted youth.
Raising the drinking age absolutely DOES reduce binge drinking. It limits the availablility of alcohol. Yes, they just go to private parties instead of bars. In my town, people are getting stiff sentences for providing alcohol to minors if their keggers are busted. And they deserve it. All this DOES have a serious effect on reducing drunkenness amongst the student population.
America would be a MUCH better country if Jenna served a 15 day sentence. It would send a serious message about underage drinking, and it would prove that the rich and powerful get the same justice that everyone else gets. In my town, if you get caught repeatedly for alcohol violations, you WILL end up in the grey bar hotel for at least a couple of weeks. Jenna deserves equal justice, just as all Americans do.