Here’s a website forwarded to me, which asserts that in 1963 Laura Bush (a.k.a. “the First Lady”) actually killed her boyfriend by running a stop sign.
http://www.bathroomgirls.com/election/meetthefirstlady.html
All through the campaign and beyond, I never heard a single word about this alleged incident.
Certainly it’s so that the website in question is not very friendly to the new president etc. in tone, but all vociferousness aside - is it basically true?
The basic facts are true. She did run a stop sign and kill a boy she knew who was driving another car.
No one (besides the idiots at the link you gave) has ever claimed it was anything but a terrible accident.
BTW, I got a real chuckle over that assinine comment that she ran a stop sign because ‘laws don’t apply to the rich’. Does that include the law of gravity? How about momentum and energy?
Here’s a citation from CBS News. The basic facts appear to be correct. The article says the story hit the national press “last spring,” but doesn’t seem to have been played up.
http://www.cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,219711-412,00.shtml
:rolleyes: Gravity, momentum and energy don’t prevent most people actually stopping at stop signs, Sam.
I’d be interested in hearing what legal consequences she faced, if any.
Not sure why that link won’t code properly, but if you just cut and paste it into your browser it should work.
Simulpost. Colibri’s link answers my question: none. As I’m fairly sure it is, in fact, illegal to run a stop sign, and I’m positive it is illegal to run a stop sign and kill another person, apparently the law didn’t apply to her. Now why would that be?
[sub]If it had been Hillary we’d never have heard the end of it[/sub]
So in one version of the story, the victim was driving a “Corvair sedan”; in another version, he’s driving a “doorless jeep”, hmm verrrry interesting.
And her speed was “illegible” on the citation (meaning for all we know she was going over 100), hmm that’s convenient - for her, anyway.
Thanks all. And Sam? Somehow I don’t think they were referring to the “laws” of physics etc., rather the sort of “laws” that (for example) distinguish between powdered and crack cocaine, or the “laws” that don’t hesitate to put a black man from a poor community into prison for (wait for it!) vehicular manslaughter.
:rolleyes: Please, RTA, one handy on this board is quite enough. :rolleyes:
It’s worth remembering that this did happen in 1963. The fact that she’d be charged with vehicular manslaughter if this happened now doesn’t imply that she should have been charged with it 37 years ago.
Times change.
And the city’s attorney is quoted as saying in the link above that he doesn’t see anything unusual about charges not being filed.
I too was amused by the “laws don’t apply to the rich” quote. Like it’s only rich 17 year olds who run stop signs. Although I find it wierd that there’s a stop sign on a road with a 55mph speed limit. Must be a Texas thing.
We have stop signs on raods with 55mph limits all over the place around here. SE 29th St running east out of Oklahoma City is 55mph from about Anderson Road eastward. There is a stop sign every mile until you get to Harrah Road (about 9 miles IIRC). From there it is still 55mph but there are no stop signs until you get into McLoud (which happens to be where I live), 4 miles further east. 55mph and stop signs is not terribly unusual west of the Appalachians. Here in Oklahoma, we even have roads with 65mph speed limits that have stop signs on them. US177, US62, and SH66 (old Route 66) are all like this out where I live.
I don’t know why anyone would expect charges to be laid or for any inquiry to be pursued.
To the best of my recollection, the tradition of not looking to closely at the minor driving infractions of the cherished was continued when there was a little accident on (off?) the bridge at Chapaquidick (sorry about the spelling!).
Also, it is International is scope - the leader of Quebec at the time, Rene Levesque also never faced any kind of inquiry for a motor vehicle death. He encountered a “sleeping” homeless man in Montreal with his car. The “sleep” continues.
Nah, it’s a rural thing. Virtually all of the roads around here are 55 mph limit and every intersection would have to have at least one stop sign. Heck the closest traffic signal is ten miles from here and that’s in a one traffic light town.
For the most part you don’t see charges of vehicular manslaughter or vehicular assault unless the driver was drunk or was intending to run down the individual and I don’t see either of those circumstances mentioned in the Bush case.
funneefarmer…
The problem is… there was no inquiry. Who knows who was drinking and who was intending to do what.
If the person running the stop sign had been a minority member, there probably still wouldn’t have been an inquiry, but, there would have been a trial and a conviction.
The problem was clearly covered up - through an understandable process of poor writing (the speed), poor record-keeping and the absence of a formal investigation. These are advantages granted to the wealthy and or politically well-connected, not the rest of us.
Was Laura Bush’s family even wealthy or politically well-connected at the time? Remember, this was 14 years before she married George. She was only 17.
I, for one, can only hope that Democrats will treat this tragedy with the same sense of sympathy and restraint that the Republicans have long shown towards the Chapaquidick accident.
But if not; what the hell, a guy’s gotta make a living. I’ve already got a cool title for my book - Bush Whacked: The First Lady Felon! - so all I need is a publisher and I can have this thing knocked off and on the stands by mid-April.
Read colibri’s link again. There are records, indicating an inquiry occurred. They have not been released because all involved were underage. This protection of minors exists for all, rich and poor.
Very cute. Thanks for playing.
Yuck, I strongly doubt that this was a cover-up by the Illuminati. Man, you’re so paranoid you probably think Oswald acted alone.
Sua
Or maybe the Bush family is powerful enough to have covered everything up thirty-seven years after the fact! 