| Sweeney was stopped for swerving on the Northway at about 1:20 a.m.
According to other reports, he almost hit a State Police car when he swerved and was accompanied by an unidentified 23-year-old woman, well young enough to be his daughter, who was observed partly sitting on his lap.
Sweeney had better luck, if you can call the State Police enabling a serial drunk driver that, when he crashed into a utility pole after drinking at a local ski area, back in 2001 when he was a congressman fresh off his "triumph" in Miami.
Green, who is the point person for the proposed AMD chip-fabrication development in Malta, was found asleep at the wheel of his car, which was on a neighbor's lawn in Saratoga Springs.
According to a Republican commenter at the Times Union's political blog (comment no. 24 is the best, but not the only one; it's a slim reed, I know, and Google was no help in finding a better source), Green had allegedly also wrecked an SEDC-owned vehicle "the last time he was caught" and has prior drunk driving convictions.
Drunk driving at .08 is a bad thing; drunk driving at more than twice that is much worse, and obviously indicative of a serious drinking problem.
In NY, an aggravated DWI arrest, unlike arrests at a lower BAC level, cannot be pleaded down to non-criminal driving while ability impaired, which is what happens for most first-time offenders.
Though what will happen with a Republican DA and judge handling these cases is unknown now.
Neither of these guys are first-timers; anyone who would attempt to drive at that extreme level of intoxication has done it before.
Many times.
Since we are really compassionate here (not fake compassionate like the Bushites), I hope that Sweeney and Green take the alcoholism counseling that will be a condition of their inevitable sentences to heart.
Before they injure or kill someone. |
