WHITE HOUSE FURY AS BUSH DAUGHTERS GRACE COVER OF PEOPLE MAG (source: drudgereport.com)
**Exclusive**
First Lady Laura Bush is furious at an upcoming PEOPLE magazine cover story on her daughters, top White House officials said this week.
Editors have designed a June 18 cover with the headline: 'THE BUSH GIRLS' LATEST SCRAPE: 'OOPS! THEY DID IT AGAIN'.
"This is just wrong," the first lady told staffers, "where will it end?"
Just as the NATIONAL ENQUIRER is planning to run quotes from a college student alleging that he smoked pot with both Bush daughters.
MORE
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer was aware the PEOPLE story was in the works for the June 18 edition, but was not aware it was going to be a cover story!
Fleischer warned that PEOPLE's action would 'further distance' the magazine from its readers and that the twins were 'absolutely not' appropriate cover subjects.
Standing by her coverage and decision to front the Bush daughters, PEOPLE editor-in-chief Carol Wallace even attended a lunch at the White House yesterday, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
"It was not a private lunch, other people where there with Laura Bush," said a source. "It was a scheduled luncheon for magazine editors."
"We heard the same complaints from the White House when we put Chelsea Clinton on our cover," a top PEOPLE source told the DRUDGE REPORT early Thursday. "The Bush family will get used to the coverage in no time."
The White House knew on Tuesday that Wallace was developing the story on the Bush daughters. It was decided that Wallace would not be univited to the lunch, despite the first lady's strong objection to the story.
In 1999, the Clintons said they were 'profoundly saddened' by PEOPLE's decision to do a cover story on their daughter.
In a prophetic flash, then- Gov. George W. Bush joined President Clinton and his wife in voicing disappointment over the story on Chelsea Clinton, citing concerns about his own teen-age girls as he considers running for president.
"If the president and Mrs. Clinton are disappointed that their daughter's on the cover of the magazine, I'm disappointed for them," Bush said.
"I'm beginning to understand better how teen-agers feel. It's a sensitive age. I respect their desire for privacy. I'm sorry it happened. "My most important job is father," Bush said. "So I'm concerned, as I say, about the meat-grinder of national politics." |
