Whether the youth was 16 or 15 is irrelevant to the story, since Jennings, even years later, believed that he had been 15, and said so. What ‘Brewster’ thinks of the encounter today is also irrelevant…the health and safety of a minor was Jennings’ responsibility and he neglected it.
Today, Jennings offers no apology, claims that it took more than two decades for him to figure out what he should have done back then, and blames others for failing to prepare him to deal with a potentially-diseased student who, as far as he knew, had been a victim of statutory rape.
The Obama administration seems more committed to advancing a particular social agenda, than it is to placing qualified individuals in positions of vast influence. It’s hard to imagine that this episode (among others) in Jennings’ background was unknown to the administration, since Jennings wrote and spoke about it publicly. He has used it as a parable to advance his personal mission…a mission the accomplishment of which is now within his grasp thanks to his new job.
The administration is either tone deaf, or it pursues an agenda more nefarious than anything suggested in this column.
