Adolescent in Chief

As I was reading this ingeniously crafted, and literally unbelievable, White House communique released on Sunday, I couldn't help but think of an incident involving the 7th-grade daughter of a friend, the details of which he shared with me a few years ago. Bear with me, now, 'cause I'm sure there's a point here somewhere...

The young girl, whose scholastic performance had weakened considerably upon encountering the social distractions of Junior High, had been sternly warned in no uncertain terms that she had to buckle down and improve her marks - or to fully expect severe consequences. Several days later, her father received a call from the History teacher that she and another boy had been caught cheating on an important assignment, each by turning in a report that was an exact duplicate - word for word - of the other's.

Further investigation by her angry parents revealed that the 12-year-old had also been seen kissing her co-conspirator in the school cafeteria, after commiserating with her small group of close friends the same day that the plagiarized report was due. When my friend furiously demanded that she explain to him where the hell she could ever have gotten the idea for such behavior, the wily girl nonchalantly replied,

"Like, from you, Daddy."

"From me?!!"

"Well, yeah," she said, acting almost incredulous at the question itself. And then, without a pause or a breath, "You told me I had to do 'whatever it takes' to get my grades up or else and like this week was Jennifer's party and volleyball and the bake sale and there were two American Idols on that I just had to watch and so I really didn't have the time to work on it much and like it wouldn't have been good anyway so there's this boy in my class who said he'd let me copy his paper if I'd kiss him in front of this other girl to get her back for dissing him in front of the class so anyway my friends thought it would be OK since you were like gonna totally ground me forever if I didn't get a better grade."

Or something to that effect.

Still, she wasn't quite finished. Doing her very best to look wounded by Daddy's disapproval, she delivered the coup de grace. "Besides, you told us you used to do papers for kids all the time."

Of course, my friend, having been one of the brighter bulbs in the school's chandelier, had often tutored classmates in his youth - with the full knowledge of his teachers, and more often than not at their request.

So he angrily reminded his daughter that he'd actually told her this when previously suggesting that she might benefit from a study helper, even one her own age. Furthermore, he'd specifically said that "buckling down" meant cracking the books, whether or not that forced her to forego some or all of her more frivolous activities, and did not mean taking the lazy or unethical way out she'd chosen.

To which his daughter replied, without a hint of irony, "Well, that's not the way I took it."

"And you know," my friend said to me, "she sincerely thought that was enough to keep her from being punished. Sheesh! They only hear what they want to hear, don't they?"

If you're still with me (and God bless you for your patience if you are!), I think you, too, can already see the unmistakable similarities of this anecdote to the Administration's attempt to justify its warrantless surveillance program, as laid out in yesterdays press release. The selective memory. The twisting of facts. The approval of a tight circle of cronies. The reliance on self-serving interpretation. The erroneous implication of a predecessor. The indignant expectation of acquittal.

As I said at the start, Sunday's White House attempt to "set the record straight" is ingeniously crafted, even making purely personal opinion come close to sounding like legal fact. One of my favorite clauses is:

Now, in terms of legal authorities, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ... requires a court order before engaging in this kind of surveillance that I've just discussed and the President announced on Saturday ... unless otherwise authorized by statute or by Congress. That's what the law requires. Our position is, is that the authorization to use force, which was passed by the Congress in the days following September 11th, constitutes that other authorization, that other statute by Congress, to engage in this kind of signals intelligence.

Oh, your position is... I guess that makes it all right then!

Equally entertaining are (in no particular order):

-- Disingenuous comparisons to the Civil War and World Wars of the 20th Century.

-- Overstating the known amount of Congressional involvement - or oversight.

-- Misrepresentation of the so-called "precedents" set by previous Administrations.

But what struck me most of all was how much the Bush Administration's supposedly legal rationale resembled the reasoning of that 7th-grade child, and what fools we'd be to swallow its self-serving fish tale hook, line, and sinker.

Or to allow a Junior High School mind to lead the nation.

There is one major difference in these two scenarios, however. I'm happy to report that in one, the guilty party actually knew she was wrong from the start, subsequently accepting her punishment, learning a valuable lesson, and changing her behavior to become the disciplined, successful High School student she is today.

Sadly, the second culprit can't even rise to a comparable level of adolescent insight. He, instead, defiantly clings to his demonstrably inaccurate side of the story, and openly promises to repeat his rule-breaking actions regardless of the truth.

We have a 12-year-old running our country right now, America, with a "that's how I see it" attitude that's supposed to justify any and all forbidden behavior. The time has come to send that unrepentant child to his room, and ground him permanently - whether he likes it or not.