Teenage Rebellion and the Supreme Court

We don't have a president so much as we have a teenager-in-chief.

I don't know what you were like in high school. If you were like me, when your freshman year English teacher said you couldn't do a book report on a Jim Morrison biography, not only did you write up that Jim Morrison biography, you carried around a book of his poems and did a dramatic in-class reading that involved repeated utterances of the phrase "ride the snake." When you got in trouble for causing chaos at a pep assembly, that only meant that your plans for the Christmas assembly became all the more extreme. The underlying goal was to let these people know that they couldn't boss you around.

For the past four-and-a-half years, the president has been having a series of similar fits. Whether it's the United Nations, Congressional Democrats, or cliquey White House correspondants, the president has a simple philosophy: if you tell me not to do something, I'm going to do it.

Now, the teenager-in-chief has his metaphorical family on his back. They don't want him to go to the party with Al. They think that Al is a little wild and unpredictable. At the homecoming dance freshman year, Al and the class slut grinded to Billy Idol's cover of "Mony Mony." It was pretty risquee. The chaperones were displeased. Al listens to Snoop Dogg and The Grateful Dead. He plays Grand Theft Auto. He got suspended from a wrestling meet because he mouthed off to the coach. One time, his eyes were reportedly bloodshot.

Don't get me wrong. The family likes Al okay. The teenager-in-chief is welcome to have Al over to the house any time he wants. The family will leave them a little money so the boys can order some Domino's and pick up Bad Boys II at Blockbuster. But what's clear is that the teenager-in-chief cannot go to that party with Al, where there might be alcohol, girls, and a little substantive due process. Consarn it, if they find out that he went to the party with Al, the teenager-in-chief will be grounded, and the family will be very, very disappointed.

The teenager-in-chief has always played by the family rules. He took Janice and Priscilla to the dances. Not that he didn't like Janice and Priscilla (he thinks they're pretty hot) but the reason he asked them out in the first place as because his pushy aunt set them up. The teenager-in-chief started a war to make his family happy. He wasted his Spring Break going door-to-door, trying to sell that stupid Social Security plan even when all the old ladies slammed the door in his face. Really, he just wanted to go on a bike ride with Condi and Al.

The teenager-in-chief will be damned if his family's going to start acting like a bunch of assholes when all he wants to do is drive out to Nino's party and have a couple Natty Lights with his buddy Al.

This all became clear in a recent USA Today interview. "Al Gonzales is a great friend of mine," Bush said in a phone interview. "When a friend gets attacked, I don't like it."

If the president were a grown-up, he might have said something about having high regard for Al, and being dismayed by misinterpretations or distortions of Al's record. He could have avoided the issue altogether by saying that he hasn't narrowed his list, or that everyone is entitled to his or her opinion even if the final decision is the president's.

As much as the dude makes me nuts, he really does see things in black-and-white. Like France, the United Nations, and Harry Reid, the radical right of the Republican Party is now telling the president that he can't do what he wants. They've gotten up in his craw and delivered an ultimatum. The teenager-in-chief does not like ultimatums. He reacts to them emotionally. What's so frickin' cool about friends like Condi and Al is that they never boss him. Frequently, they let him copy their quizzes and spot him a couple bucks for lunch at McDonald's. And when you're the teenager-in-chief and someone tells you that you can't do something, and then talks shit about your buddy, what's your reaction?

It depends.

Some days you rebel by making a point of ignoring Abu-Ghraib. Other days, you nominate Al.