Are you ready for the "Arms for Babies" scandal?

1) And I don't remember poor Chelsea Clinton being off limits.
2) I was going to say that blonde Latin American kids were possibly due to the German influx during WWII. Although blondes aren't completely unknown in L.A. countries.

My theory:

Dinosaur DNA. Think about it.

Is that a Jurassic Park reference? Are you suggesting that there's an island of these kids somewhere and they're planning a theme park?

I think you know what I'm saying.

Check the link. Those kids look like their being told to keep their mouths shut or that dood will activate the DNA that causes the children to tear each other apart.

I think its perfectly legit to check out the general process of this adoption. If they did anything illegal, it would bring up ethics questions more important than pot-smoking (Which almost-justice was it?).

Kathleen-
I don't remember reading anything about poor Chelsea Clinton's background. Maybe they checked it and found it too uninteresting to print, but I thought the press generally kept their distance. Do you remember something different?

I like the idea, Brian. It sounds perfectly plausible... One question though, is "dood" old-english for "dude"?

As for you, Shanster, I think you've got a selective memory. The off-hand right wing comments about Chelsea were flowing pretty freely for a while. Not only was she being called homely, but it was suggested by some that she was the product of artificial insemenation, due to the fact that her mother was (is) a lesbian. And, more recently, there was a book suggesting that she was the prduct of rape. I'm sure you must have heard some of this before... As we know, you listen to Rush.

Who's more dangerous on the road? A 30-year-old man crossing the blood-alcohol limit driving too slowly in the middle of the night, or an 17-year-old boy driving 97 miles per hour on an interstate highway in broad daylight?

The standards of danger are not the standards of news judgment. The Thursday eruption over George W. Bush's old DUI arrest of 1976 quickly trumped the amount of TV time most other fall campaign issues or controversies received within the first 24 hours. But the 17-year-old boy arrested for wild speeding is Al Gore III, driving back to Washington from the Outer Banks of North Carolina on August 12, 2000. Clearly Young Al is not supposed to be a public figure. Clearly it would seem beyond the pale for any political operative or hard-charging talk-radio host to blame his dad for doing a rotten job of the boy's upbringing. But is it fair to spike the unfavorable news angles — especially when a presidential nominee's child breaks the law — and then celebrate the child, or more precisely, celebrate the parenting of the child, on a different day? The Clintons and the Gores have both benefited politically from exploiting their children in a way that invites backhanded compliments from sympathetic journalists.

Young Al's speeding was noted in the New York Times with a 185-word Associated Press dispatch. The Washington Post carried 89 words of wire copy below three other wire service items. But both newspapers devoted a much larger story (and photos) to Young Al's Sidwell Friends football games, and how the publicly paternal vice president never misses one.

On October 22, Times reporter Kevin Sack explained: "While Mr. Gore's aides may be befuddled from a purely political standpoint, they find his devotion to his children's extra-curricular activities to be one of his most endearing traits." He also quoted the Sidwell Friends football coach, who's extremely impressed with the perfect attendance.

The Post just hopped on this bandwagon on Thursday, the day before the DUI boomlet began. On the front page of the sports section, high-school football reporter Tarik el-Bashir cooed: "The Gores, who haven't missed a Sidwell game this season despite the demands of Al Gore's presidential campaign, looked like the dozens of other proud parents in attendance at the private school on Wisconsin Avenue in Upper Northwest."

Young Al is apparently drawing attention from Ivy League scouts: "At 6 feet 2 and 220 pounds, Gore is one of Sidwell Friends' best players. A standout center, linebacker, and punter, Gore rarely leaves the field, and this season led Sidwell (5-3) to the Mid-Atlantic Conference championship, the school's first league title since 1973."

The Post story concluded: "But there were a few minutes after the final whistle had sounded when the father and son met. Dad patted Al Gore III on the shoulder, shook his hand and the two exchanged a few kind words. Then the father climbed into his waiting limousine and headed for the airport."

This double standard began with the arrival of Chelsea Clinton in 1993, the first presidential teenager since Amy Carter. The Chelsea Blackout was so intense that when Saturday Night Live made mild fun of her gawky looks in a "Wayne's World" skit, reruns on Comedy Central have simply excised the gentle gibe that "we're rooting for you" to get foxier.

But reporters have exploited Chelsea's apparently winning personality to her parents' advantage. In the immediate wake of Monicagate in 1998, a Time magazine cover story by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy ended by calling Chelsea "a bright-eyed American echo of other countries' princesses," asserting: "Her ability to come back and fight for him, to walk with him and smile for him and throw herself before the cameras aimed at him, was an act of generosity and love that speaks better for Bill and Hillary Clinton than anything they could say or do in whatever public life remains to them." That may be the definitive passage to exemplify what's wrong with hauling famous kids into the limelight just for momentary political gain.

Chelsea Clinton has never had a brush with the law, but how can the public judge what a "princess" she is when the media have placed her in a plastic bubble? If she's off-limits for everyday scrutiny, she ought to be off-limits for backhanded tributes to her embattled parents. In the August 16, 1999 issue of Newsweek, the magazine suggested Chelsea has competition in the Politician's Progeny Puffball Department with its valentine to Al Gore's oldest daughter, Karenna Gore Schiff: "Over lunch with a Newsweek correspondent last week, Karenna seemed a smooth blend of her mother's peppiness and her father's gravitas." A year later, Time devoted a loving profile to Gore's eldest, and all her savvy and influence within the campaign. The magazine's "Winners & Losers" feature suggested: "Advice to Al: Keep her onstage as well as behind the scenes."

In today's political coverage, when senators and governors and congressmen are often considered too boring to interview on ABC, CBS, or NBC, the candidate's family members have become ubiquitous interview subjects on the campaign trail, especially Karenna. Can they be used to systematically "humanize" Al Gore without suffering any scrutiny that might seem inhuman to the audience? This may be tricky terrain, but the current double standard underlines another way the liberal media has done everything it can to humanize the Stiff One at every opportunity.

from people of all places

A valid journalistic subject?

TERENCE SMITH: At the White House press briefing yesterday, Spokesman Joe Lockhart tried to forestall further coverage.

JOE LOCKHART, White House Spokesman: Let me reiterate something that the president said in both his statement and what he said to me, which is he and the first lady very much appreciate everyone in this room who has respected their family's privacy on this issue. And it is their hope, as we move into the future, you will continue to do so.

ChelseaTERENCE SMITH: Nonetheless, the Clintons have, on repeated occasions, included Chelsea in public appearances. In the 1992 presidential campaign, she was featured in the convention video, "A Man from Hope."

CHELSEA CLINTON: What I would like America to know about my mother and father is that they're great people and they're great parents.

TERENCE SMITH: Chelsea has also frequently accompanied her mother on overseas trips, and last August, on the day after her father admitted his inappropriate relationship with Monica Lewinsky, she was the symbolic and very public bridge between her parents.

SmithTERENCE SMITH: Now we're joined by two reporters who have covered the White House for years. Elizabeth Drew, journalist and author, is currently working on a book on Washington, and Gene Gibbons, formerly chief White house correspondent for Reuters, and now managing editor of Stateline, a new Internet publication focusing on government.

Welcome to you both. Elizabeth, People Magazine says Chelsea Clinton is a valid journalistic subject. Is she?

ELIZABETH DREW: Well, I wouldn't say that the article was invalid. I would say it was unnecessary. I think one of the true -- one of the very few civilized arrangements that's been going on in Washington in the last decade, let's say, has been the press' acceptance of the Clintons' plea to just let her grow up and let her try to lead as normal a life as possible. People say she's now 19, but let's look at why they wrote the article and what the - there's almost a purulent interest now in how the family crisis has affected Mrs. Clinton and how it's affected Chelsea. I think she can do without that.

TERENCE SMITH: Gene Gibbons, is Chelsea Clinton fair game?

GibbonsGENE GIBBONS: Me thinks the Clintons protest too much. I believe I probably am as well acquainted with Chelsea as most outsiders, and I underline outsiders, having covered three foreign trips with her and her mother and having been in her company on several other occasions. I know her to be a very warm, engaging, well-mannered young woman, a child any parent would be proud of. The article in People Magazine reflects that. I can't for the life of me understand why the Clintons would be upset about it, and I can't understand why they would create a commotion, what they would accomplish by that, other than sell more magazines.

TERENCE SMITH: Can you understand why the Clintons would be upset about it?

The Clinton's reaction.

DrewELIZABETH DREW: I think they probably -- they didn't ask me, but I think they probably saw this as crossing a line. This is a benign article. I mean it's quite nice to Chelsea, but it asks some questions everybody wants to know about how she is feeling about this crisis in her family and how she is handling it. Once that starts, it'll keep going, and I think they were just trying to stop it from starting.

GENE GIBBON: But here we are in the seventh year of the Clinton presidency, Chelsea is 19 years old, she's not a little girl anymore, she's a grown-up young woman. The Clintons tend to try and have it both ways at times, I think. She was a part of a People Magazine piece that they cooperated with in '92 when her father was running. She campaigned by his side during his whistle-stop train trip to the Chicago convention in 1996. And there was the hand-in-hand photo walking to the helicopter after he admitted that his relationship with Monica Lewinsky was more than casual. So I think that, you know, to want to focus the spotlight on Chelsea when it is in their interest and control it when they don't want that spotlight, I just don't think it works that way.

TERENCE SMITH: Are they trying to have it both ways, Elizabeth?

ELIZABETH DREW: Oh, sure, absolutely. Most first families do. They want us to see the happy moments and the joy together and all that. And then they want to draw a curtain. But the fact that the Clintons are being hypocritical about this doesn't mean that Chelsea should suffer at other people's hands.

TERENCE SMITH: Gene gibbons, for years you and others did observe a kind of hands-off policy. What's changed? Why is it different now?

GENE GIBBONS: Well, I think that a number of things have changed. And I'm not sure that it has changed all that much. There was this very flattering article and I must say I find myself wondering if there is part of the White House spin by focusing attention on this very flattering publicity at a time when the president is in a very unfavorable light. It works to their interest.

SmithTERENCE SMITH: Well, it it's certainly a fact that it got the article more attention than it otherwise would. But issuing a statement, of protest, I mean that's a fairly aggressive and unusual act, is it not?

ELIZABETH DREW: Well, presidents have done everything from canceling subscriptions to having their press secretaries beat up on people.

TERENCE SMITH: They also sought in this case as you know to, block the article and even invoke the name of the Secret Service to suggest that this might in some way jeopardize her security.

ELIZABETH DREW: Well, without getting into exactly what methodology they did or didn't use, I still think the point is that Chelsea is the innocent in this whole story, she's at a college now, Kenneth Starr in his wisdom sent his daughter there, too, and I think she just deserves the privacy that can be given to her.

GibbonsGENE GIBBONS: The injection of the Secret Service into this is what I find the most troubling aspect of the entire business. Fame creates risk as long; as there are mentally unstable people who are magnetized by it, that's going to be the case. Chelsea is better equipped than most people to handle that. We taxpayers pay to have her protected by a very efficient group of bodyguards, the U.S. Secret Service. For them to weigh in and try and head off a story I think is putting us on dangerous ground.

TERENCE SMITH: Well, I suppose the fundamental question I'd ask you both is: Is Chelsea Clinton news? Would you call this news?

Joel Stein/TIME
Time cover

STANFORD, Calif. (TIME, Sep. 29) -- It was embarrassing enough when my parents, crying, holding baby pictures and stuffing a flowery note into my carry-on bag, dropped me off at Newark Airport eight years ago for my freshman year at Stanford. But Chelsea Clinton's parents showed up at her Stanford dorm last Friday night not only mushy but also in a motorcade flanked by security guards and nearly 250 of their closest journalists. I would have died.

Despite the weepy goodbye letter Hillary wrote in her syndicated column last week (I would have killed her before I died), asking journalists to leave her daughter alone, the Clintons permitted move-in day to be a public event. The Clinton Administration, after all, has fine-tuned an Oprah-style culture of public emoting. And emote they did. Mom shopped for supplies with Chelsea; Bill packed and then carried boxes. Last Wednesday, as Clinton was working on answers for questions on the tobacco settlement, spokesman Mike McCurry told him to prep for Chelsea questions as well. The President winced and asked, "Do I have to?" Then Al Gore asked, "So, are you doing O.K.?" Clinton replied, "I'm trying."

Even before Chelsea arrived at Stanford, every woman with curly, strawberry blond hair was getting even more double takes than usual. The rumors floating around campus the week of her arrival ranged between true and scary: bulletproof glass in her room (yes), cameras in the hallways (yes) and bathroom (no), massive construction on campus to transform the underground steam tunnels into escape routes (no), that she chose Stanford to be with some mystery frat-boy boyfriend (no), that Secret Service men live in the rooms around and above and below her to prevent people from drilling into her room and poisoning her, Mission: Impossible-style (no), and that she has a computer chip implanted in her neck to track her. (And this where 50% of students had a 4.0 in high school.) There was endless speculation, and at least one betting pool, about where she would live. But the thing that obsessed Stanford most was the Secret Service men, who, as they did for Jack Ford, will dress like students and live in the dorm. Will they listen in while Chelsea hooks up? If they go to class with her, will they have to do the assigned reading? And, most important, will they bust students for underage drinking?

Nevertheless, the California campus was trying to be as New York blase as possible. While the most laid-back school in the country started looking more like backstage at a Puff Daddy concert (metal detectors, guys in fatigues, and a laminated, neck-rope pass for everyone--students, parents, faculty, press), people tried to act cool. The school administration will say nothing besides one well-crafted sentence about "respecting the privacy of all our students." Chelsea's residence staff has been trained in press handling (tell them to leave, then call the police) to the point where they seem unfazed. Even Bill Shen, founder of the apolitical campus' small Stanford Democrats club, said his organization won't recruit her: "She's pre-med. She's got enough to worry about."

Perhaps more than anyone else, the campus newspaper, the Stanford Daily, has set the standard for Chelsea overprotection. It has declared the Chelsea beat off-limits and spent most of the past few months refusing comment to every media outlet that ever existed (Good Morning America alone called five times). Overcompensating in its Friday issue, it buried the Chelsea story behind four others, right after STUDENT SENTENCED IN GRAFFITI CASE. Yet Carolyn Sleeth, the editor in chief, not only has a picture of Chelsea as the sole decoration on her computer; she also has a roll of Chelsea-brand toilet paper planted on her desk. Like it or not, Chelsea is news.

In fact, a little industry emerged around the First Frosh. Senior Jesse Oxfeld, a former Daily editor, has worked feverishly to market himself as the official Chelsea pundit, appearing on the Today show, CBS, MSNBC and NPR. Husky, chest hair peeking up from his button-down shirt and punctuating sentences with one raised eyebrow, Oxfeld looks the part. "Ultimately, I want to be a pundit. But I didn't know where to find an entry-level job." Making the most of his opportunity, he has got his lines all worked out. "If I really wanted to be cynical about it," he says about Clinton's arrival on campus, lifting that eyebrow, "Al Gore needs the 64 electoral votes from California, and Leon Panetta wants to be Governor." Wow.

How much "Chelsea Goes to Stanford" can the country really take? "Hopefully," says Oxfeld, preparing for another gig on NBC, "a lot." But already the cameras are receding. And last week's public move-in may be the last story for a long while.

--With reporting by Karen Tumulty/Washington

So, what's your point?

I think the point is that he hasn't lost his prowess with the ctrl-C/ctrl-V two step.

Mark-
The Chelsea stuff...I honestly don't remember either of the rumors, but of course the homely stuff was just observational opinion. I'm not sure what galt was saying either, can someone translate all that into red-state English (3 syllable max, no compound or complex sentences)?

Now at least people are talking about adoption.

Blondness explained: The Roberts kids came from Ireland (which does not allow foreign adoptions):

http://www.time.com/time/press_releases/article/0,8599,1086120,00.html

Discussion here:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/2949706
http://www.isthatlegal.org/archives/2005/08/blondeness_and.html

Try this in place of the bad link:
http://underneaththeirrobes.blogs.com/main/2005/08/the_roberts_ado.html

Good work, Jim. I'll get this up on the front page as soon as I can. Thanks.

I'm afraid that "good work" would be doing my job, instead of reading political blogs.