So Senator Mike Crapo R-ID was sitting around having a few and then perhaps a few more so that when he decided he needed to drive around Alexandria Virginia, a Washington D.C. suburb, he had a blood-alcohol level high enough not to be able to jump the orange thingee below.
Nor was Mike able to pass a field sobriety test when his SUV (what else he's a GOP) rolled right through a red light. His blood alcohol level did pass though. It won him a DUI conviction.
He was arrested in the early hours of Sunday morning or better known colloquially as LATE SATURDAY NIGHT. He was just driving around and if Mike were hipper and a little less the clean Mormon he might have had Chuck Berry's great No Particular Place to Go on the box. Because, as Mike tells it, he was restless he had vodka shots/vodka tonics (the reporting varies on this point and Mike has not offered any clarification). Then having done shots/tonics and being restless he took a drive with a snoot-full and no particular place to go on a LATE SATURDAY NIGHT that was in fact already the Lord's day.
Curiously, when speaking of this incident Senator Crapo went out of his way to point out that he was entirely alone during the fateful drive. Here we need a Greta Garbo I want to be alone audio drop to get some convincing done for Senator Mike. He tanked up and drove around the DC suburbs on a LATE SATURDAY NIGHT because he wanted to be alone?
Senator Crapo admitted being new to drinking. He only started about a year ago, he says, because of stress. He is one of the most back-bench of GOP back-bench senators and he votes reliably with the GOP, so no stress there. Maybe it's his name because even well meaning people are going to pronounce it Crap-O as opposed to Cray-Po. But golly the Senator has had that name for 61 years; surely, he has learned to cope with that stress by now. Maybe it was just the holidays which are noted for being stressful.
Then there is his beverage choice. He was drinking vodka. Senator Crapo is a devout Mormon. Devout Mormons do not drink alcohol. But if one were going to drink alcohol, would it not make more sense for him to start with beer? Beer is an understandable slip for a devout Mormon Senator far away from home near Christmas. Beer would have brought something akin to automatic absolution.
Yet there he was sitting in his apartment drinking vodka alone. Two things suggest themselves. Senator Mike Crappo wanted to get hammered hence the vodka; and couldn't go to a local watering hole lest he be recognized.
Senator Crapo had no particular place to go early Sunday morning December 23rd. Maybe he should consider going to a meeting
Sat Jan 05, 2013 at 9:08 AM PT: I hope Senator Crapo gets help before he wrecks his life, family and perhaps kills someone; more, I hope the incident brings home to his Eagle Scout & Harvard Law School graduate ass acceptance of the cliched but true "There but for the grace of God go I." Republicans/Conservatives often put themselves at great illusory remove from the 47% they despise beacause for the moment their life hedges are working.