A Tale of Two DUI's – UPDATED

A Tale of Two DUI's – UPDATED November 19, 2009

Two women get into their cars, under the influence of alcohol.

One of them is the wife of a powerful Republican senator.

The other is the daughter of a powerful Democrat senator and former Candidate for the Office of the President.

The wife of the Republican is named:

Charlene Lugar, wife of Senate Foreign Relations ranking member Dick Lugar (R-Ind.), was arrested Wednesday night for drunken driving after a traffic accident in McLean, Va.

The daughter of the Democrat senator (he has two), is unnamed:

Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) daughter was arrested Thursday morning in Los Angeles for driving under the influence.

Admirably, neither woman’s age is given.

The story about the wife of the Republican senator has information and troubling details that are left unexplored and sound pretty ominous:

According to a spokesman for the Fairfax County Police Department, “At 6:18 last night one of our patrol officers initiated a traffic stop” of Charlene Lugar at the intersection of Old Dominion Drive and Dominion Reserve Drive in McLean.

Following the stop, Lugar was arrested for driving while intoxicated and taken to the county’s adult detention center where she was processed.

According to a Fairfax County Police spokesman, Lugar was also charged with one count of hit-and-run.

The story about the daughter of the Democrat has no information and no details:

Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) daughter was arrested Thursday morning in Los Angeles for driving under the influence.

The Republican senator, who undoubtedly wishes this could be kept a private matter, as his wife is not a politician, has nevertheless acknowledged at least part of the story, providing some additional details, which helpfully inform that no one was hurt or killed:

Sen. Lugar issued a statement, saying: “At about 6:30 p.m. last evening, November 18, Mrs. Lugar had a traffic accident in our McLean, Virginia neighborhood. A charge has been filed and a court appearance is scheduled for January. No other persons were in her car or the unattended car she hit. Thankfully, no one was injured. We are deeply sorry and embarrassed that this accident has occurred.”

The Democrat senator, who undoubtedly wishes this could be kept a private matter, as his daughter is not a politician, has not addressed this matter or provided even part of the details; no one knows if anyone was hurt; he is being allowed to keep private. As of this writing, this is still all we know:

Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) daughter was arrested Thursday morning in Los Angeles for driving under the influence.

To be honest, I don’t care about either story. These women are not public servants, they are not politicians and their sins ought not be fodder for the daily grist. Were these my spouse or kids, I would prefer that we deal with these issues privately, as a family, as I am sure anyone would.

I just think it’s interesting. Information regarding both DUI’s come from the same source, and the same writer.

It is what it is. That is all.

UPDATE:
Regular readers know I do not, as a rule, follow these sorts of sensationalistic “scandal” stories that are about nothing more than a family’s private issues. I also don’t follow stories about missing blond students or kidnapped kids. They all hurt too much to write about.

But I was so struck by the extreme differences in reportage of these two stories that I was heartily amused, and also kind of sad. Both stories are all over the place, but Roll Call was the only one that managed only a single line on the Kerry piece, not even naming which daughter had been picked up.

I’m all for that sort of discretion, to be honest. When Al Gore’s son was picked up for DUI, I was just as glad that the story went away. I think wives/husbands and kids of politicians should be off-limits unless something truly newsworthy has happened. For instance, if poor Mrs. Lugar had actually hurt or killed someone, that would have been a story. I would have been very pleased, in this instance, to have seen Mrs. Lugar enjoy the discretion of the one-line-unnamed news blurb that Ms. Kerry received.

But I can’t help thinking, if Ms. Kerry’s story were exactly the same, but her name was Bush or Palin, more than a sentence would have been written. At the very least, we would have learned which of the Bush twins were involved; Jenna, the public school teacher in Baltimore, or Barbara, the AIDS worker in Africa.

And if it were a Palin kid, God help them.

As I wrote earlier:

Al Gore’s son can drive drunk – George W. Bush’s daughters may not drink at all. Absolution, it seems, is no longer granted or denied through the Right Hand of God, but from the Left.

Related: Cooper’s kids are alright. Are Roves?


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