...except maybe Patrick Kennedy (D-RI). Or maybe Drudge. Wait, no. Drugs. It was drugs that made him crash his car into a barricade near Capitol Hill early Thursday morning.Needless to say, the right-wing blogosphere has been all over this story since it broke:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Rep. Patrick Kennedy, son of Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy, said on Thursday he was involved in a car crash on Capitol Hill that he blamed on disorientation from prescription medication.Kennedy neglected to mention that he had taken prescribed medication (leaving him "apparently disoriented") in his initial statement about the accident, stating only that he had "consumed no alcohol prior to the incident.""At no time before the incident did I consume any alcohol," Kennedy said in a statement late on Thursday.
In an earlier statement, he said only that he had no alcohol before the accident early on Thursday. Kennedy, a Rhode Island Democrat, was not injured.
In a statement on its Web site, the Capitol Police said it was investigating a traffic accident, but it gave no other details. A Capitol police spokesman was not available for further comment.
But the police union president Lou Cannon said Kennedy "appeared to be intoxicated and the officials were called to the scene at which time a determination was made to take him home."
Hot Air has a nice roundup of the affair, including links to the accident report, Kennedy's response, and other tidbits.
Also check out Flopping Aces , where Curt is keeping track of the Culture of Corruption™ among Democrats (hint: the list is expanding).
To no one's surprise, the lefty blogs are rather silent about the story. A far cry, of course, from last week's "arrest" of righty talk show host Rush Limbaugh, which marked the end of the Palm Beach County State Attorney's three-year investigation of Limbaugh for alleged prescription drug fraud.
I guess the shoe's on the other foot now, isn't it? We'll have to wait and see whether the moonbats are as unforgiving of Kennedy (yes, I'm aware of what I just typed) as they were of Limbaugh.
Don't count on it.
UPDATE, at 3:45 p.m. on 5/5/06: More details emerge in CrashGate. Patrick Kennedy is still sticking to his "it was the drugs" story, but he has announced that he will seek further rehab at the Mayo Clinic, for addiction to prescription drug medication. On another front, Drudge (via The Boston Herald) is reporting that at least two unnamed witnesses have come forward to report that they saw Kennedy at the Hawk & Dove -- yes, drinking -- in the hours before the accident on Thursday morning:
WASHINGTON -U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy insisted yesterday that he had consumed “no alcohol” before he slammed his Mustang convertible into a concrete barrier near his office, but a hostess at a popular Capitol Hill watering hole told the Herald she saw him drinking in the hours before the crash.
“He was drinking a little bit,” said the woman, who works at the Hawk & Dove and would not give her name.Leaving his office late last night, Kennedy refused to say whether he’d been to the Hawk & Dove the night before.
Earlier in the evening, Kennedy issued a statement through his office blaming the accident and strange behavior surrounding it on prescription drugs.
After Kennedy responded to the swelling scandal with his first letter, a Herald reporter visisted bars where Kennedy is known to socialize.A bartender at the Tune Inn, which is next to the Hawk & Dove, also said Kennedy was spotted in the Hawk & Dove Wednesday.
At this point, I'll take those eyewitness accounts with a grain of salt, given the motive for both sides to misreport facts. I trust, however, that if the above gossip is true, more will eventually come forward to corroborate it.
Stay tuned.
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