if you can't take the heat, get off the trail

Chelsea Clinton's reaction to a question about her mother's handling of the Lewinsky scandal churned in my gut for a few days. I didn't like it, to be sure, but something else about it bothered me.

A few days later, I watched a televised segment of Chelsea's campaign speech at another college campus. She likened herself to the students in the audience. I'm a young person just like you, she told the audience. I share - I know - your struggles and concerns for issues such as affordable higher education.

Chelsea's own words put the finger on my discomfort during the earlier brouhaha. She grew up in the governor's mansion and the White House, under the protection of armed guards. I doubt FAFSA ever featured in her considerations about attending Stanford and Oxford. Whatever disadvantages that accompany such a cloistered life, it is a privileged life; in this regard, she has more in common with Paris Hilton than with the average American college student.

Her claim - that she once was your typical college student worried about paying tuition - is a lie, and her brush-off of an inartful but legitimate question blew the cover off her act. The content and tone of her response betrayed a belief that some things, albeit acceptable for the common person, are beneath her; she is not subject to rules that apply to others. Every other person who goes on the campaign trail must face and address the press; but not I. Others on the campaign trail must face and answer uncomfortable questions; but not I. One can only speculate the extent to which this outlook is an individual or a family trait.

A highly educated, 28-year-old investment banker does not need the same level of protection as a 14-year-old girl. The former should not be afforded such protection when she holds herself out as a public voice in one of the most contested and important American elections in recent history.