The Dickerson post

Commenters in the post on political families and in other posts want me to explain myself. So I shall! I thought the Dickerson article was, for the most part, a fine article. I just strongly disagree with the portion I quoted. Here it is again:

The president and Dick Cheney should have a wide zone of privacy when it comes to their families. Their daughters didn't ask to enter the political echo chamber, and so they shouldn't be forced to live in it. (Though, the Bush twins did speak at the 2004 Republican convention, and a Cheney daughter worked at the State Department.) There is bipartisan agreement on this.

I don't see how Dickerson, as has been suggested, was being in any way sarcastic when he said this. I read this as Dickerson saying that he doesn't believe the Bush and Cheney daughters should deal face-on with media scrutiny. I think they should. Big time. The Bush and Cheney children made themselves political operatives. I do not think they should benefit from a wide berth of privacy.

At the same time, Dickerson does suggest that the president and vice president should be forthright when questioned about their politically active children. I agree. I don't, however, think that--in the case of those two particular families--questioning George Bush and Dick Cheney should constitute the full extent of the prodding. That's just about it. I don't share the assumption that political members of politicians' families ought to be safe from media scrutiny simply because such scrutiny might appear unseemly. Reporters should hound Mary and Liz Cheney and the Bush twins. Seriously.

Later in the article, he says that, vis-a-vis Chelsea, the Clintons set a good standard on this issue. Well, maybe so. Certainly I think Chelsea has, to her benefit, by design or otherwise, played a less significant role in her parents' political careers than have the Bush and Cheney daughters in theirs. (Chelsea, after all, was a minor for much of the Clinton presidency.) And I agree that the Clintons handled the Chelsea/private-school issue admirably. That said, I'm sure that the Clintons did use Chelsea for political purposes at some points (though I can't remember Chelsea ever involving herself in political issues). And if by doing so, Bill and Hillary had exposed some sort of obvious hypocrisy, then I think it would have been legitimate for journalists to delve into their adult daughter's private life directly.