Nation's 12-Year-Olds Getting Out of Hand

They're food critics, conservative pundits and armed robbers

When we heard about David Fishman, the latchkey New Yorker who turned 12 and started taking himself out to restaurants when his parents had to work late - he even took a little critic's notebook along, spoke with the chef and everything - it was sort of cute. (It was less cute when Paramount Pictures bought the rights to his story within weeks to make a movie out of it, or when GQ called and asked him to review restaurants in their pages.

Then we saw tape of Jonathan Krohn, the tween who's written a book called "Define Conservatism" and spoke at the recent CPAC conservative convention. And we thought, okay, he's 12 (13, actually), and he should be out getting grass stains on his pants. Instead, he's got Rush Limbaugh on his feet, giving him a standing ovation. Hmm.

But these kids are clearly giving the nation's youth the harebrained notion that no matter what you do, if you're 12 years old while doing it, you instantly become famous. Because a 12-year-old was arrested Thursday for being one of an armed three-person team that held up a bar in the wee hours in in Omaha, Nebraska. There's plenty of time to be a felon later, kid. For now, maybe you want to dissect a couple of frogs, draw some comics, that kind of thing.

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