Bush Twins Help Dad With Spread in Vogue

There comes a time in many US presidential elections when things begin to get really tough.

And then there is only one thing for it - the candidates bring out their children.

Democrats John Kerry and John Edwards can fill whole podiums with their offspring. Now, the White House has struck back with a double whammy - the Bush twins.

Having been ferociously, though not always successfully, guarded from publicity for the duration of the Bush presidency, Barbara and Jenna are suddenly everywhere.

Yesterday the 22-year-olds appeared in a glamorous photo-spread in Vogue magazine, and declared in an interview that dad "scares the heck" out of their boyfriends.

They also offered a few glimpses of the lighter moments in their father's "war on terror". Their 20th birthdays fell less than three months after the September 11 attacks, but the party at Camp David went ahead. "We had 20 of our friends, and a really nice dinner and a karaoke machine afterward. And of course my dad had a sports tournament for the guys," Jenna Bush said. "He's so competitive, so active. He was stressed out, I know, but we still had the party.

"People ask me if I ever see my father, and I say yes, because he puts in the effort. He calls all the time to tell us he's proud of us. He has the best sense of humour, and he is very funny with boyfriends ... He's not the shotgun-dad type, he's the joking-around-to-the-point-where-he-scares-the-heck-out-of-them type."

The twins denied having been pushed into the campaign by their embattled father, fighting to win the second term that eluded their grandfather. "It's not like he called me up and asked me," Jenna said. "They've never wanted to throw us into that world, and I think our decision probably shocked them. But I love my dad, and I think I'd regret it if I didn't do this."

Rumour has it neither sister shares her father's radical right politics, but in Vogue they are non-committal. "I'm just not political," Jenna said. "I have opinions, but there's nothing about the process that has ever interested me."

The words determinedly turn away from the twins' typically troublesome teens, when underage drinking escapades earned them the tabloid nickname Double Trouble. The main picture in Vogue displays them in elegant ball gowns by Oscar de la Renta and Calvin Klein, while they discuss ambitions: Barbara wants to work with young Aids victims in Africa and eastern Europe, and Jenna wants to teach in New York schools. The only drinks mentioned were soy lattes from Starbucks.

The reverential text predicts "the bright and unjaded first daughters will serve to humanise and soften the image of a controversial wartime president".

In the Democratic camp, Hillary Clinton's supporters were outraged by news she would not be invited to make a keynote speech to the party convention in Boston at the end of the month - though Senator Clinton's husband has been asked, along with the other former Democratic president, Jimmy Carter, and the defeated 2000 candidate, Al Gore.

Even Senator John Kerry's former arch-rival, Howard Dean, who said many unflattering things in the primary campaign, will have his moment. But Mrs Clinton, nothing but admiring of the presidential candidate, has been left off the roster.

"It's a slap in the face, not personally for Hillary Clinton, but for every woman in the Democratic party and every woman in America," Judith Hope, a big fundraiser and former party chairwoman, told the Associated Press.

She said she would email 1,000 New York women - "many major donors to the Kerry campaign".

Washington pundits speculate the omission was to prevent Mrs Clinton overshadowing Mr Kerry and his running mate, Senator John Edwards in front of activists who made it clear last year they would rather have her on the ticket.