Clinton Huffs Over Puff Piece on Chelsea

WASHINGTON: You can't blame the First Family for being a little touchy about their personal lives these days. But now the White House is steamed at People, a fellow Time Inc. magazine, over its cover story about "the deep bond of love" between Chelsea and Hillary. The piece is far from critical, yet in a statement issued late Wednesday the President expressed dismay that six years of "the media's restraint in allowing Chelsea the privacy that any young person needs and deserves" has come to an end, right there on the supermarket checkout line.

White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said the Clintons found fault with "more the concept than the detail" of the story -- namely, that Chelsea was on the cover at all. "There's never been a cover story on Chelsea," said Marsha Berry, the First Lady's spokeswoman. People's managing editor, Carol Wallace, defended the story: "She is a valid journalistic subject," she said. "We are certainly sensitive to the Clintons' concerns about their daughter, but there is a great deal of admiration for this mother-daughter relationship." The First Dad's virulent response -- will Bob Barr now charge him with obstruction of journalism? -- certainly seems a little ungrateful; these days, the White House needs all the admiration it can get.

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