PUBLIC FAMILIES, PRIVATE ISSUES

TALLAHASSEE -- They prompt admiration, outrage, and above all, sympathy.

Famous political families like the Bushes and the Kennedys live in a
fishbowl world in which expectations are in the gene pool.

Gov. Jeb Bush has said that carrying a famous family name opens doors but
can bring unwanted attention.

"A blessing and a curse," says Bush, the son of a former president, the
brother of the current one.

This week, for his 24-year-old daughter, it may have felt more like a curse.

Noelle Bush was arrested for trying to buy the tranquilizer Xanax, a
prescription drug used to treat anxiety by posing as a cancer doctor.

When you are the niece of a popular U.S. president and daughter of a
governor running for re-election, it's fodder for front-page news stories
and tabloid headlines.

The arrest brought untimely attention, just before the president's State of
the Union speech and a visit to Florida aimed at boosting the image of her
father.

Political analysts say there won't be much of a political price for the
governor to pay. But it certainly raised interest. Bush's office on
Thursday provided a printed stack of e-mails to the governor, about 500
pages, with mostly sympathetic expressions about the incident.

"These things have a way of creating a certain sympathy for the first
family," said Richard Scher, a University of Florida political scientist.
"Whatever Jeb's political faults may be, the public now sees them as a
caring and involved family."

Still, for the Bushes, it is another family crisis playing out painfully in
public. It is not all that unlike the situation President George W. Bush
had had with his daughters involving underage drinking.

The June 2001 arrest of 19-year-old twins Jenna and Barbara Bush at an
Austin Mexican restaurant spawned national headlines.

The incident came just two months after Jenna Bush was arrested for
drinking beer underage at a bar on Austin's famed Sixth Street party strip
in April, and pleaded no contest before a judge who sentenced her to
community service.

It was a painful time for the new president, said longtime Bush friend Fred
Meyer, a Dallas businessman and former Texas Republican Party chairman who
headed national fund-raising for Bush's presidential campaign effort.

"These are standard family problems, but because of the profile of the
parents, they become news items," said Meyer.

The drinking incident hit home partly because of Bush's own admitted
history of drinking and carousing while growing up, Meyer said.

"He's a sensitive guy and remember George, until he was 40, never was
accused of being an angel," Meyer said. "He's not in position to come
steaming out because I'm sure his children knew about that also."

This week's events weren't the first time Jeb Bush has had to beg the press
and public for privacy when scandal has knocked on his family's door.

Bush's wife, Columba, was fined in June 1999 for failing to declare almost
$19,000 in clothes, jewelry and perfume she bought on a Paris spending spree.

Since then, especially, she has generally kept a low profile, appearing
most-often publicly at anti-drug conferences spurred in part, by drug
problems in the family.

Other embarrassing incidents have surfaced as well. The Republican
governor's youngest son, John Ellis (Jebby) Bush was not charged but met
with police in 2000 when he was caught in a Tallahassee mall parking lot
nearly naked with a 17-year-old girl.

Some people think there are complex emotional issues behind such indiscretions.

Experts say that along with workaholic lifestyles, the obvious scrutiny of
public life, even for children of elected officials, brings self-imposed
and societal expectations that often turn children of politicians to self
medication, crime or any number of misbehaviors.

"They are being put in a role in which they have to fulfill," said Dr.
Eugenio Rothe of the University of Miami, a psychiatrist.

Political and media relations experts give Bush kudos for how he's handling
this week's incident mainly by asking the public and the media to "respect
our family's privacy."

As with Jeb Bush, George Bush also refused to discuss the incidents
involving his daughters publicly.

"The Bush family across the board is incredibly loving but unlike some
political families they do not put their children out in the public," said
Ray Sullivan, who served as a Bush spokesman during his time as governor
and presidential candidate. "The fact is there are many families that have
to deal with challenges like Jeb Bush's family is. They will deal with
these issues in a loving but very private way."

Rothe, the psychiatrist, said the Bush family could take comfort in knowing
that something can be gained by public attention rather than burying these
issues.

"What appears to be like a political disaster to some may serve a very
positive social role," Rothe said. Florida families going through substance
abuse problems in their homes may now become more willing to seek outside
help and treatment knowing that even the governor's family is dealing with
similar circumstances.