MAKING the same mistake twice is pretty foolish, so making a really stupid mistake twice may be a sign that you're not the brightest crayon in the box. Or, in Jenna Bush's case, it may be a sign that the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. The 19-year-old, who just completed her freshman year in college, was arrested twice last month for attempting to buy alcohol illegally. The second time she committed the offense - in a Texas bar - she tried to use fake identification to buy alcohol. Here's a tip, Jenna: When literally everyone knows your name, don't try to pass yourself off as someone else.
By making the same stupid mistake twice, Jenna Bush effectively made herself the poster girl for underage drinking. In a way, that's not such a bad thing, though Jenna and the Bush spin team may disagree, and there may be dissent over whether the shenanigans of the president's daughters should be covered in the first place.
Perhaps the question of whether the First Kids' alcohol infractions merit press attention should be put aside. Perhaps we should concentrate on how exceptionally stupid and silly the whole thing really is. If the Bush twins' escapades, dutifully covered by the tabloids and plastered with cheesy headlines like Double Trouble and Twin Threat, show anything, they should show that underage drinking isn't out of the ordinary. It also isn't something that only bad kids do, and it isn't something that necessarily has to be accompanied by binge drinking or various other forms of destructive hedonistic behavior and debauchery.
The discussion about the drinking age that the Bush twins have brought on could actually be helpful by making people think about how arbitrary the age requirement of 21 years really is. Making it an issue that will circulate in the popular consciousness could answer the prayers of young people everywhere who are frustrated with a law that is downright silly.
Young people legally become adults when they reach the age of 18. They are tried as non-juveniles in courts of law and gain independence from their parents. If 18-year-olds are adults and if they are, in fact, real people and not just thoughtless kids, it doesn't seem quite right that they can't legally drink. It just doesn't seem quite right, or even sensible, that young Americans can be drafted and go to war for their country but they can't drink a toast to the victories for which they fight.
It doesn't seem right that people can operate heavy, lethal machinery in the form of automobiles at the age of 16, which gives them a huge amount of responsibility, when it comes to ensuring others' safety, before they are allowed to drink. They also are given the capacity to have a large impact on the future course of the nation by being allowed to vote in elections, but they aren't considered sensible enough to adequately handle the freedom to buy a beer.
You get the picture. Young people are growing up fast nowadays, and when they are adults, they should be treated as such when it comes to alcohol - the same way they are treated as adults in the legal system, on the roads and in the electoral processes.
You can also look at it from another, somewhat more negative approach - call it the equal opportunity for self-destruction school of thought. It doesn't make sense that you are free to indulge in some vices when you're 18, but not in others. You can buy cigarettes when you're 18 and gleefully go about smoking like a chimney, which is more permanently destructive to your health than is drinking in close to reasonable amounts.
This column probably hasn't contained any new thoughts about why the 21-year age limit is stupid. It probably won't be the last column of its kind, written by a frustrated college kid who doesn't really have any desire to go on a wild drinking binge, but would just like to be able to go to a bar once in a while. It doesn't seem like too much to ask. Maybe Jenna Bush can take the issue up with her father on all of our behalfs.
(Laura Sahramaa is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. She can be reached at lsahramaa@cavalierdaily.com.)
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