I know times are tough, with you crashing your car into a guardrail Friday night while drunk at twice the legal limit. Your life and career are on the verge of collapsing, and the last thing you need is a childish, sarcastic newspaper columnist giving you a lecture.
But you know what? You drove drunk, so you deserve to be shamed by me, the shabbiest excuse for a columnist in the country.
Most people, at one point or another, have been guilty of drinking too much and making a bad decision. Some people have even made the mistake of driving while unsure of their sobriety. However, I have problems understanding how a person in such a high-profile position could end up driving at twice the legal blood alcohol limit. You're the mayor, for crying out loud. How could you possibly be foolish enough to drive after any amount of drinks? Politics isn't rocket science, Herb. Rules for public figures are merely common sense reiterated.
If you had blown a .09 or .10, it would have been understandable. Don't get me wrong, you still would have been a complete idiot, but I would have understood the mistake a little better. But .16? Even an alcoholic knows to have someone hide the keys when they're planning to drink that much.
I also don't get your refusal to tell the truth about this issue. I can understand why you told motorists at the accident scene not to call the cops. You were drunk. But lying about it afterward, claiming you, a mayor with a lot to lose, weren't trying to flee the scene? Please. You were drunk. It was a last ditch attempt to avoid responsibility.
I'm not trying to pass myself as the good cop, Herb. I'm no angel when it comes to alcohol. I had my bad moments while attending college in this area. When I was a sophomore, the campus police caught some friends and I drinking in a dorm room. Like you Herb, I was drunk. Rather than taking the underage drinking ticket and going to bed, like I should have, I decided to refuse it and walk to my room, acknowledging the officer only when I gave him the finger.
That was stupid. Really stupid. I was lucky he didn't throw me in jail. But it still wasn't as stupid as a mayor getting crapfaced, suddenly deciding to drive drunk to an environmental conference in Chicago, and then crashing his car and attempting to get the fine people of Spooner, WI to help him get away.
I've been to Spooner. Those people don't take crap like that.
I hold no grudges against you as a mayor, Herb. People have criticized you at times, but overall you've done a decent job. I have no major complaints. Even with this in mind, I still hope they throw the book at you in court, and remove you as mayor shortly afterward. Being that drunk while driving was horrible enough, but driving for an hour and ten minutes to Spooner while that drunk? That's below despicable. If you blew a .16 after driving 70 minutes, discussing the accident with officers, and then being transported to the hospital, I don't even want to think about how drunk you were when you left.
You may be sitting at home thinking you've learned your lesson, Herb, but you haven't. Your black eye and forehead gashes don't even register as a slap on the wrist. The only acceptable consequence is total and utter humiliation, jail time, large fines, and enough license bureau red tape attached to your license to make your head spin. It's for your own good, Herb. You won't thank us later, but you'll have learned what you needed to learn.
