God help me, I’m 100% in agreement with a Daily Kos diary.
‘orthogonal’ says:
Here’s the problem folks: most Americans who aren’t partisans truly believe the democrats and The Republicans are “all the same” and that the power-elite takes care of its own.
Democrats can talk about Abramoff and Cunningham and the Republicans’ toothless ethics bill, but so long as the People see us as just the “other side of the coin”, they have little reason to go to the polls to vote for Dems.
Now we’ve got Congressman William Jefferson who despite allegations of bribery won’t resign, and Patrick Kennedy who announces he’s “going to vote” and so dodges a Breathalyzer test, and now will go into rehab rather than resign.
This gives all the justification in the world to independents who will say that the Dems are “just as bad” and that “all of them are corrupt”.
The Democratic Party needs to show it’s different, that it’s not a club of the elite taking care of the elite.
Much as I feel for Congressman Kennedy, it’s time for him for his own good and for the good of the Party, to resign with dignity.
I’ve said much the same thing:
As I’ve said, I think there’s an opportunity for the Democrats to use this and make both moral and political progress – but it will require cleaning their own house first. I think that’s a smart political move, not a dumb one, because it iwll show the American people that they are serious about changing the culture in Washington.
And at dinner with some Democratic friends last week, the topic was raised again – and I’m going to keep saying it.
The first step on the path to the Democratic Party getting some traction against the GOP on corruption is for the Democrats to hang a few of their own.
It’s not like there aren’t any corrupt (Moran) Democratic (Moran) politicians (Moran) in Washington.
The unanimous opinion of those I know who have experience with Ambien, either personally or through close relatives, is that Congressman Kennedy’s story exactly fits the pattern of known Ambien side-effects. The most reactionary nutballs among them are saying that Kennedy deserves sympathy and understanding. One even said that he too drank alcohol, which is rare for him, under the influence of Ambien and did not recall doing so or anything at all of the episode. He also said that Ambien should be flat out recalled as dangerous.
While it is hardly wise to drive under the influence of any drug, including Ambien, I had thought it possible that the Congressman actually was telling the truth. On which grounds, resignation seems harsh.
BUT…
That makes the special treatment from the Capitol police, who would have happily thrown you or me into the hoosegow under such circumstances rather than blocking all investigations and driving one home, all the more egregious. THAT must be investigated. Closely.
The irony is that if they had used normal procedure, they might have exonerated him. Now it’s a permanent question mark re our friend Rep. Kennedy (D-UI).
Well, yes, the best way to appear to be different from the other party in the area of exercise of power and corruption is to be different. Unfortunately, neither party believes in limited government and both parties stand four-square behind privilege. They just have some differences on who should be privileged.
Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress exclusive control over the Distict of Columbia. That’s why the capitol is such a bloody mess: the Congress vacillates between benign neglect and overbearing control. The Capitol Police are not fools. They know where the power is.
He’s a Kennedy…of course he was drunk. That is what they do. They play on their yachts, look down on the little people, push security guards, and drive drunk. Just be thankful that he didn’t drive off a bridge and kill a girl like his drunk daddy.
The base problem is that the Democrats are operating at a deficit. Republicans do resign, just because they have been accused. The Democrats could pull even if they started having standards, but they need to pull ahead. How? Honor killings?
Not going to happen. As others have pointed out, for all of their shortcomings, Republicans are in fact more likely to hold their own accountable either by resigning or being “forced” to resign by their colleagues. Which leads those whose votes might be swayed by the “culture of corruption” issue to conclude that “yes some people in both parties do it, but only one party does something about it when it happens.”
I’d be more than happy to help the Democrats get rid of the vast majority of the Republican party in Washington if they’d be willing to help me get rid of most of the Democrats. I’m not a partisan. The biggest problem have I have with most Democrats is not that they dislike Republicans – it’s that they think the Democratic party represents a solution. Lesser of two evils for me, but I’m very much in favor of ‘throwing the bums out’ and starting over.
You notice how the Republican party lost interest in term limits when they won control of Congress, and they lost interest in fiscal responcibility as soon as they thought they had the public distracted.
No, I don’t agree with Kos and his kids over much, but the general malfeasance and corruption of the GOP is one area we tend to concur on. It’s just when you start talking about how much better it is (or would be) under the Democrats that you tend to lose me.
The question on my mind is would you, AL, be happy if the Democratic party were successful fooling a plurality of voters into changing their perceptions IF there is no change in policy positions? Would you happily rejoin the fold if that party were pristine as far as outwardly values go yet exactly as they have been the last 3 years on policy? After reading you for so long I’d be very surprised if you’d answer yes although I’m sure “orthogonal” and the dKos flunkies would gladly hang a Kennedy if it means control over anything in DC.
With that out of the way…if any person would think differently about politicans in general based on the actions of one or a few then they are frankly too stupid to vote. To paraphrease Epictetus(I think): When a game is no longer fun even a child is wise enough to walk away. If someone thinks the game in Washington is still fun they’re either self-serving whores or complete morons.
Why don’t they just say Mary Jo Kopechne was driving the car? That makes as much sense as claiming that he was going to a congressional vote at 3 o’clock in the morning.
We might as well learn to live with the trail of carnage that the Kennedys leave in their wake, and stop even asking them to explain it. The explanations only make things worse. They certainly don’t make any impression on their constituents, which is why Kennedys never resign and never get turned out of office. And won’t this time, either.
The dynamics of party politics proceeds by certain rules. A party in power is never quite the same as that party when out of power. To the extent that either of our parties is fiscally conservative (not very) it will always be the party out of power because they cannot control the direction of spending. After two terms holding the reins of the Presidency, a political party considers them its property by right; after three terms a little less so because fatigue has set in. The problem with running on a reform ticket is that people expect you to actually reform. And so on.
The Democrats will ultimately regain control of the Congress; don’t expect what fiscal restraint they’ve been advocating to last long.
The problem of course is that there is apparently a bartender who “is testifying”:http://cbs4denver.com/topstories/topstories_story_124185823.html that s/he was serving Kennedy earlier that night. So if had Ambien in his system, he was mixing with with bourbon back.
A.L.
What fiscal restraint has the Democrat party been espousing?
The only thing I’ve heard out here in teh hinterlands is that that money being spent in Iraq would be better spent on domestic projects.
That certainly isn’t fiscal restraint.
We have a spending party and even more spending party. That’s the facts here. None of that “Howard Dean is a fiscal conservative” BS.
A.L.,
I said in the first response here that a friend who used Ambien had a Kennedy-like response including drinking, and didn’t remember any of it. Furthermore he discovered on another occasion that he had posted on-line:
Put your lawyer hat on and consider that you are making conclusions about the effects of a drug without a proper foundation for your conclusions.
“Hi, I just had a car wreck because I took a drug that made me not in control of my actions, but I can’t wait around to be arrested, I have to go vote on the budget!”
I’m beginning to wonder, are all the Kennedy’s going to stop taking Ambien one day and suddenly decide they like lower taxes the way Jack did?
Wooooooooooo, wait a minute there, Skipper. Are you saying that drugs can interact with alcohol?! Can this be true? If so we should demand they start printing warning labels or something and hand them out with the pill bottles in pharmacies. To think mixing two narcotics can cause you to nod off at random. WHILE OPERATING A MOTOR VEHICLE NO LESS! This is an OUTRAGE! Is anyone willing to start a petition with me? We need action on this pronto.
Tom, is your friend a small child that would help evoke sympathy and grassroots support for our crusade? I’m guessing by the use of “sez” on IRC, I mean RTC, that our search may be over. If he can help us in any way please have him contact me at turnipseed@clueless.org. Thanks in advance.
A.L.,
What Holsinger said about Ambien.
It is one effed up dangerous drug that is being given out as freely as cough medicine.
I have used it in the past for sleep problems. It did nothing bad for me, but it didn’t help my sleep any either. Others have not been as lucky.
As a very partisan Republican, I think the Democratic Party has a lot of problems, but the issue with Rep Kennedy in this instance is *not* one of them.
If the testimony is credible, and he was mixing alcohol with Ambien (this is a very, very bad idea even with stuff like anti-histamines)… then suddenly we have a very, very big problem.
I don’t care if he eats Ambien and chugs Jack Daniels for breakfast at home. But if he’s getting behind the wheel that changes everything, and this is worth making into a political issue in order to make sure he’s too scared to drive in these situations. Otherwise, he’s gonna kill someone.
Barring credible evidence of alchol + sedative/hypnotics, I don’t think we’re in resignation territory but I’m very much behind the police union on this one.
He should be charged with DUI or a similar applicable charge. If you’re on Ambien, then with or without alcohol you aren’t fit to be operating a motor vehicle… and he has now admitted to doing that.
The law needs to apply to us all – and members of Congress, or Parliment are not an aristocracy that sits above that. At least, not in a healthy free society.
At a guess, he’s telling the truth about the alcohol … and the situation is more fundamental.
There are regular references to him suffering from depression. However, IIRC there has been at least one occasion in which his diagnosis has been reported as bipolar disorder — probably bipolar type 2, in which the highs aren’t so very high but the lows are quite low.
The Ambien is a red herring. He says he is at Mayo to deal with addiction to painkillers, not due to a drug interaction with his sleep medication. I’m guessing that the real issue is that he either is not complying with a medication regime for BPD or that its interaction with Ambien has become quite dangerous. Add to that the fact that the anti-nausea medication he is officially stated to use (and which, in interaction with the Ambien, was blamed for his recent accidents) actually belongs to the same chemical family as several anti-depressives and is known to interact with some psychotropic medications, greatly enhancing their effect.
Kennedy’s addiction to cocaine as a teen fits the bipolar pattern — many people with this disorder first manifest strong symptoms in their late teens and many self-medicate with alcohol, drugs and indiscriminate sex. Unfortunately, this can significantly muck up the brain chemistry further. At a psychological level it also both affects self esteem badly and, when the person is on the upswing, convinces them they don’t really NEED to follow their doctor’s orders about type and dose of medication. People with BPD have been known to do things like stop one of their medications, and not the others, leading either to a manic phase or to a deep depression and usually to more rapid cycling between them.
I’m not a psychiatrist and I don’t play on on the Internet. However, the signs of a deepening bipolar condition, about which Kennedy is probably in denial to some degree, seem to be present in the public record.
And THAT means that this is not simply a matter of him needing to grow up, take responsibility and act responsibly in the future. He may well not be in a condition in which that is possible without him first acknowledging the severity of his problem and second, scaling back the responsibilities he carries until such a time as he is able to make good judgements because his brain chemistry has stabilized for an extended period of time.
The fact that his last hospitalization is only 5 months ago does not bode well for him unless he and his support system, including his family, congressional staff and medical caregivers, face his condition without denial.
Sad thing for that family.