Here's your comeback for "TK's car has killed more people than my gun" rw meme.

Oh yea, so has Laura Bush's

http://www.bartcop.com/pickles-killer.htm

IT HAPPENED in the dark, after a thunderstorm, more than 36 years ago and she has never spoken about it.

But according to her friends it remains the key event which has shaped the character of Texas First Lady Laura Bush.

When she was 17 years old, the future wife of Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush, then known as
Laura Welch, made a mistake that killed her boyfriend.

On Nov. 5, 1963, at 8 p.m., Laura was driving east on Farm Road 868 in her hometown of Midland en route
to a party. At a dangerous intersection, she allegedly failed to see Mike Douglas, also 17, heading south on State Road 369.

Laura, traveling with her best friend Judy Dykes and allegedly chatting about clothes, collided with Douglas' Jeep,
which was doorless. He was thrown from the vehicle and broke his neck, dying instantly.

"She didn't see him, he didn't see her," says Dan Harris, who also was cruising Midland that night, with
Laura's close friend Beverly Girdley.

"It was a terrible accident."

The Midland City authorities have declined to release the full accident report. They have referred Freedom of Information
requests for release of the document to the attorney general of Texas, who has until May 15 to decide if he will make the report public.

SOURCES in Midland's City Hall say they have heard Texas Gov. George W. Bush will use his influence to make sure the report is never released.
________________________________________

Other acceptable comebacks include, but are not limited to:

Somebody's father and grandfather died from brain cancer, show some fucking decency (that was the one that I used)
or
Bite Me Ditto-Head
or
Will your healthcare insurance pay for the proctologist to remove my foot from your ass?

There is MUCH that Pickles did that's fair game for criticism, and I loathe her husband with every ounce of my being, BUT:

Her accident and TK's are NOT, NOT, NOT equivalent.

Laura Welch (because she wasn't a Bush at the time) was 17 freaking years old. She ran a stop sign because she was a distracted TEENAGE driver. Someone died as a result. She had not been drinking (that I've ever read.) She did not leave the scene of an accident. There were no questionable circumstances.

Ted Kennedy was a 30-something married SENATOR, for crying out loud, he had been drinking, although what his BAC was we will never know, since he left the scene of the accident, and did not report it until the next day. A young woman died in an air pocket in his car, evidence that she probably could have survived the accident IF he had bothered to get help.

Comebacks #2 & 3 are fine.

So being 'distracted' is an excuse?

Her negligence killed someone, and she received not even a summons.

Have you ever been a stupid teenager who did something stupid that could have bitten you in the ass? Don't you see that as being a little different from an adult in one of the world's most responsible jobs, elected for your JUDGMENT doing something far, far worse??

I've never driven a car at an unsafe speed and travelled through a stop sign, causing another person's death. I was brought up to believe that if you're old enough to drive a car, you're old enough to drive it responsibly.

Edit to pre-emptively acknowledge that some people STILL consider me stupid.

about three teenagers who kicked and beat a vendor with one of the kids ending up dead. Many people here wanted to excuse their behavior as being a result of youth.

There is no, zero, zip, nada evidence that Laura Welch ever intended to hurt anyone.

tendency to revile her forever - hold it against her even though she was not charged with anything. If I were to hold anything against her, it would be marrying George. But, I'm sure some of my in laws don't understand why Miz O married me, and has stayed for 41 years.

In the case of the three kids in the assault there seemed to be a desire (in the DU thread) to gloss over their misdeed due to their youth - "maybe the vendor should have tried talking to them." He did - he said they couldn't have his stuff.

My apologies for not being more clear in my earlier post.

not even in the same spectrum, I really feel bad for anyone who is ever in any kind of similar circumstances but they are just not even close,

Go spin this crap there, not here.

Vehicular manslaughter from a failure to stop at a Stop sign?

but probably not, if she hadn't been drinking. Accidents can happen to anyone, it was TK's actions in the aftermath of his that make his different from Laura's.

interested in hearing your 'guess' that manslaughter somehow requires the perpetrator to have been drinking.

--Janklow had a long history of excessive speed. He shouldn't have been driving AT ALL. (What was the outcome of his case? I can't remember. Prison? Fines? Suspended sentence? Did he finally lose his license? Did he run for re-election? Resign his seat?)

after thirty days, served his sentence and released. I've told Republicans that I would gladly submit Kennedy to the same punishment if in return they would permanently shut up about him. None seem to want to take that deal.

Janklow resigned from Congress. I believe, but don't quote me on this, that he lost both his driver's license and his license to practice law, but both have been restored. I also believe, but am not certain, that his conviction has been given South Dakota's equivalent of an expunction, where the conviction is removed from his record. Wiki likely has more if you're sincerely interested.

Obviously, they had something to hide. I have a lot of TX friends who think it's common knowledge that she was drunk....I assumed they knew that for a fact, having grown up around the same area, but maybe they don't.

WHy not release the report if there's nothing to cover except for an "accident"?

But I take anything that starts out with "sources say . . ." with a grain of salt.

but I take someone who won't release a report to mean that they're afraid of how it will be interpreted. If the report just said, "accident. no drinking. etc", they would not have refused the FOIA request. that's just common sense.

My point about the rumors was, they must have heard them; they're still prevalent today. If the report said what you're suggesting, why not release it since it would have quashed the rumors.

That's all.

If some rightwing nut says that about Ted Kennedy killing more people than his gun, then so has Laura Bush. Math.

nwmhtt

Can you spell hypocrite.

under your rock.

Mike Douglas, George Tiller, and Saddam Hussein.

The only other people who knew about all those abortions.

- there is no comparison between the two and it is intellectually dishonest to equate one to the other. There are no winners in the "Laura vs Teddy Accident" argument and to escalate it only points out Senator Kennedy's actions after the accident. Certainly not something that we need to focus on now or at any time.

They both had to live with and make peace with their respective accidents. That is certainly a penance in and of itself.

invasion of Iraq have caused the death of more than one million Iraqi civilians (and more than 4000 American soldiers). So far, Bush has done nothing to atone for this.

My guns haven't killed anyone, my car hasn't killed anyone, Laura Bush is no longer First Lady (never mind a 17-year-old), and may Senator Kennedy rest in peace.

Good grief.

That's my response.

:fistbump:

If Ted Kennedy was a republican, the incident would have been written off as a "youthful indiscretion"---just like Laura Bush's vehicular homicide incident, just like her husband's drugging, whoring, and military desertion, just like their daughters' public boozing, just like their niece's drugging, just like their nephew George's vandalism, just like their nephew Jebbie's "underage sex in the mall parking lot"...

I am sure there are other examples not involving the Bush family, but I cannot think of any off hand.