You've all heard about congressman Patrick Kennedy's late night fender-bender a couple of weeks ago, and how he's now blaming it on prescription drug interactions:
Kennedy said he had taken sleep medication and a prescription anti-nausea drug that can cause drowsiness.
The Rhode Island Democrat addressed the issue after a spate of news reports. His initial statement said, "I consumed no alcohol prior to the incident."'
Later, however, he issued a longer statement saying the attending physician for Congress had prescribed Phenergan on Tuesday to treat Kennedy's gastroenteritis.
Kennedy said he returned to his Capitol Hill home on Wednesday evening after a final series of votes in Congress and took "prescribed" amounts of Phenergan and Ambien, another prescribed drug that he occasionally takes to fall asleep.
His initial report, with only a denial of any alcohol use and no mention at all of prescription drugs, smacks of the "definition of 'is'" hair-splitting that the thoroughly weaselly are famous for. But my question is why he thought he had to mislead anybody. He's a Kennedy, for crying out loud. He's fucking bulletproof! He could have held a press conference and said
Hell, yes, I was fucked up! I had a case of beer, a fifth of tequila, a pint of absinthe, and four double-shots of Roundup. I took every pill I could reach and some that I couldn't. I even swallowed one of my shirt collar buttons because I thought it was a new ventilated form of E. I snorted a line of Drano off the crack of a 12-year-old hooker's ass because regular coke just doesn't do it anymore. In fact, this statement I'm holding is printed on blotter acid paper, and as a result I see all of you through Jimi Hendrix' own purple haze, and I'm here to tell you that you have omnidimensional tentacles growing out of your nipples. You name it, I did it, and I'll do it again.and gotten away with it.
What the fuck do you think you can do about it?
Think I'm exaggerating? Read this and this and this.
Posted by Chris at May 15, 2006 07:58 AMOkay, so he was driving under the influence (of perscription drugs in this case). I expect he'll be charged with a DUI any day now. I also expect a winged primate to emerge from my butt.