PAGE SIX By JARED PAUL STERN with Paula Froelich and Chris Wilson Richard Johnson is traveling
June 29, 2002 -- This Bud's for the Bush twins
HARD-PARTYING presidential progeny Jenna and Barbara Bush have been caught in the act of boozing once again.
On Wednesday night, the 20-year-old, fun-loving fillies sucked down Budweisers and smoked like chimneys at Stetson's, a Texas-themed Washington saloon, reports the Washington Post.
The women, who were with a group of friends and seemed to have ditched their Secret Service detail, stayed well past midnight, and one of them got down on her knees at one point to help an inebriated pal perform a party trick.
The bar's owner, Rob Deisroth, told the paper he wasn't on the premises that night and doesn't know how the Bush twins were able to buy liquor. D.C. law requires cops to arrest anyone caught drinking underage.
"All I can tell you is that the daughters are private citizens and we don't comment on their personal lives," states First Lady Laura Bush's press secretary, Noelia Rodriguez.
The incident was just the latest alcohol-fueled escapade in the sisters' wild lives. Last month, the Web site firsttwins.com reported that Jenna and her new frat boy beau, Cooper, ordered drinks while out to dinner with his parents in Austin. In April, Barbara hit New York and went partying with friends at Lotus.
In May of last year, both twins were busted for guzzling margaritas at a Tex-Mex joint in Austin, on the heels of Jenna's bust for underage drinking the month before. Their grandmother, Barbara Bush, chewed them out for it when the family got together at Camp David.
Meanwhile, Jenna recently checked out a 21-and-over concert by pot-puffing rapper Snoop Dogg in Austin. And the Washingtonian reports that, in between bouts of boozing, the twins have been working out at the Sports Club LA in the Ritz-Carlton in Washington, where Michael Jordan has an apartment and also pumps iron.
The magazine also says the White House is furious at the Associated Press for revealing that Jenna's Secret Service code name is "Twinkle" in a story about her recent trip to Paris, Budapest and Prague with her mother.
The president's staff has long maintained that the twins should be off-bounds. But several reporters who covered the trip grumbled that since Jenna was traveling at taxpayers' expense, their insistence that she be left alone doesn't wash.
Reporters and photographers were told not to write about Jenna or photograph her. Jenna usually waited until the coast was clear before venturing out in public, but that didn't stop European paparazzi from snapping her picture as she made the rounds of the pricey boutiques.