IF JENNA BUSH IS A POTHEAD, IS IT NEWS?

The media has been silent about the National Enquirer's recent allegation
that the first daughter is a marijuana user. Is the press giving the drug
war's commander in chief a break?

Should Jenna Bush, the 19-year-old daughter of the president, be in jail?
Or at least be arrested? That's a conclusion to be drawn from a recent
report in the National Enquirer that asserts she smokes marijuana. After
all, some 600,000 Americans are arrested every year for marijuana
possession -- including about 13,000 teenage girls. Some would say, of
course, that Jenna Bush shouldn't be hassled for allegedly smoking pot, but
then maybe nobody else should either.

The charge that Jenna smokes marijuana is found in the Enquirer's March 20
issue; the tabloid quotes two unidentified fellow students, one of whom
says, "Jenna came over one night and we all did some doobies together. I
wouldn't say she's a major pothead but she likes to toke up when it's
around." Can unnamed sources be trusted? The answer to that question
usually depends on the reputation of the publication.

Starting from a low base, the Enquirer's rep has been rising in recent
years. It had so many scoops on the O.J. Simpson case that even the New
York Times had to acknowledge its journalism; in the Ennis Cosby murder,
the reward it offered broke the case. And just in the past few weeks, it
scooped the establishment media on Jesse Jackson's "love child" and Hugh
Rodham's receipt of $400,000 to influence his brother-in-law on
presidential pardons.

One reason the Enquirer gets scoops like these is that it hunts for them,
while other publications are leery of "scandal-mongering." But as media
critic William Powers observed recently in the distinctly
unsensationalistic National Journal, sometimes the real news is scandal:
"Despite their well-known flaws, the tabs are now serious players because
they know that great journalism isn't just about bloodless policy and issue
debates. It's about ethical foibles and hypocrisies of the powerful."

Speaking of the powerful, George W. Bush, who refused to answer questions
about his own drug use during the campaign, now finds himself as commander
in chief of the worldwide drug war, being fought all over the Third World
as well as on Mean Streets, USA. But if the Enquirer's pot-puffing
allegation is to be believed, Bush's own daughter is nevertheless safe and
sound, actively protected by the U.S. Secret Service -- this in the Lone
Star State, where conviction on possession of 2 ounces or less of marijuana
leads to a jail sentence of up to 180 days.

The White House dismisses the Enquirer report as not being worthy of
comment. Noelia Rodriguez, press secretary to the first lady, said only
this much on the record: "Our position on the daughters is that they're
private citizens."

Fair enough, although that position doesn't shield others from being
hassled over their activities as private citizens. As the drug war
escalates, Uncle Sam's reach extends further. In 1998, Congress amended the
Higher Education Act in an effort to exclude students with past drug
convictions from receiving financial aid. According to Students for
Sensible Drug Policy, some 8,600 college kids have lost some or all of
their benefits during the current school year after revealing a drug
conviction on their application form. Another 278,000 refused to answer the
question; Congress is poised to tighten restrictions further to de-fund
those students, too.

In other words, between drug busts and aid cuts, young people and pot is a
big story. So why has there been utter silence -- a database search finds
not a single reference to the Enquirer story in the two weeks since its
publication -- on the Jenna Bush allegation?

Three explanations present themselves. First, reporters have found no
evidence to corroborate the Enquirer's allegation. Fred Zipp, managing
editor of the Austin American-Statesman, said in an interview, "From time
to time we have pursued tips about the behavior of the Bush daughters" --
that is, Jenna and her twin sister, Barbara -- "but we didn't find anything
newsworthy."

A second possibility, of course, is that the major media aren't much
interested in marijuana-crime stories. Why not? Maybe because reporters,
who may have had countercultural-pharmaceutical-type experiences in their
own pasts, tend to empathize with marijuana dabbling. And so journos might
not think that dope smoking is a crime worth getting revved up about.
According to a Pew Center poll released this week, 38 percent of Americans
admit they've experimented with marijuana. Extrapolated to the entire U.S.
population, that's over 100 million experimenters. So maybe the media
deserve credit for realizing that marijuana use is no big deal -- even
when, allegedly, the "criminal" in question is a president's daughter.

A third possibility is that the non-tabloid pressies are simply afraid to
follow the truth if they think it will lead them into trouble. Jane Hall,
professor of journalism at the American University in Washington, observed
in an interview, "It's not going to win reporters any points with the
public to go after this story." But what about the law, which goes after
plenty of pot users? Hall answered by noting the current split between
popular culture and the legal culture: "The American public is forgiving;
the penal system is not forgiving."

Needless to say, President Bush and the entire White House apparat would
probably not feel forgiving toward the media entity that pursued a story
about drug use in his family. That means no state dinner invitations for
Enquirer editor Steve Coz. But it also might leave people wondering what
revelations are being squelched by the reporters and editors who do show up
at presidential fetes.

Who could blame Bush for feeling unforgiving and unfriendly toward those
who would violate his family's privacy? But who could blame any other
father for feeling similarly -- but perhaps unavailingly -- protective
toward his own children as they are drug-busted?

This much is certain: The law is not nearly as forgiving to the nonwhite
and the non-protected. According to the Sentencing Project,
African-Americans account for 13 percent of the drug-using population, but
a disproportionate 55 percent of those convicted of drug offenses.

Jenna Bush, of course, has been convicted of nothing. But the legal system
her father now oversees looks increasingly guilty of discrimination against
the weak and hypocrisy in favor of the strong.

And that should be a big story.

About the writer James P. Pinkerton is a columnist for Newsday and a
contributor to the Fox News Channel. He worked as a domestic policy aide in
the White House for President Ronald Reagan and President George H.W. Bush.