***SCROLL TO BOTTOM FOR MORE UPDATES***

***UPDATE*** 5/5 8:36 AM CT
Michelle Malkin has a new post up on the Kennedy situation today which includes a question from Influence Peddler:

It also appears now that Kennedy was hitting the bars Wednesday night. I actually heard this mentioned a few hours ago on Fox & Friends, but got sidetracked and forgot to add the update.

***UPDATE, Strange Inconsistency***
I was just thinking about the combination of drugs Kennedy said he was on. He named Phenergan and Ambien. Phenergan is an antihistamine used for allergies, as well as a sleep aid. Ambien is simply a sleep aid. Why would a person take sleep aids before heading to vote in Congress (again, at 2:45 am)? Not that we need this inconsistency to make clear what happened here, but it's pretty interesting that while his initial excuse as he was rushing to get to a vote (obviously bogus), causing the accident. After getting the Kennedy treatment and taken home by police without FSTs being administered, he changes his excuse to "sleep aids made me do is". Is taking sleep aids normal protocol for making house votes? So now all they have to do is convince us that he took the sleep aids, intending to go to bed, but somehow they made him go crazy and think that he had a 2:45 am vote. And you know the rest.

By the way, it's 3:10 AM CT right now, and the Daily KOS still has no mention of the word "Kennedy"; on their home page. Perhaps they've all taken their ambien and hit the roads for an early start to work today.

***END UPDATE, Strange Inconsistency***

Well, at least Congressman Pat Kennedy's accident and cover-up didn't result in the death of a woman, like his father Senator Ted Kennedy's incident did over 35 years ago. But poor young Patrick did have to endure the pain of a free ride home from police, after superiors in the PD stopped those trained in DUI cases from performing sobriety tests, and then sent all other patrol units away from the scene. Must be tough being a Kennedy! More on the intial reporting by Roll Call, via Drudge.

First you have to ask yourself, 'would I have been treated the same way?' after police saw me crash and stumble out of my car, clearly appearing intoxicated? But that's different, Pat Kennedy was in a Rush to get to a vote..... AT 2:45 AM!?!?!? Michelle Malkin has kept a running post with updates on the matter, and points to this Bad Hair Blog post for another theory on the "I'm late for a vote" excuse, besides desperate drunken stupidity:

Late to a vote? One would think that answer showed he was drunk, but he was claiming something else: More like claiming diplomatic Constitutional immunity.

United States Constitution,

Section 6. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the treasury of the United States. They shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same;

Patrick claims he no alcohol prior to the incident.

And if he did, it sure didn't affect his memory of the Constitution.

It seems possible that he anticipated such an incident happening eventually and may have had this planned excuse ready. One might even speculate that stern warnings from daddy might have gone something like - "People like myself have done a lot of damage to the Kennedy family name and what you've been doing is just inviting more trouble. I know you're not going to stop, so when and if you ever get caught, claim you were on the way to a vote and you'll get off scott free, because it's right there in Section 6 of the Constitution."

Of course it's all speculation as to whether or not Kennedy was trying to make use of this loophole or not.

Michelle Malkin also notes that this same Pat Kennedy was in an accident less than 3 weeks ago, in his home state of Rhode Island, in which, judging by his hand written police statement, he seems to have been drunk as well. Michelle has posted the police documents obtained by Howie Carr, all of which you can find in this PDF document from Carr's site. I've pasted a screen shot of Kennedy's written statement (page 6 of the PDF):

Look, I'm the first to admit my handwriting is terrible, as is many other people's. But come on, look at that thing!

What I find interesting about some of the reporting is that many in the MSM are referring to this as "early Thursday morning". Yeah, that's technically right, but is it accurately telling the story? Early morning is like 5-7 AM, not 2:45! Expose the Left has video of a Hardball segment on the incident from this afternoon, in which host Chris Matthews opens with: "Well we begin right now with breaking news from Capitol Hill, about an incident early this morning...." He then asks the guest to talk about the incident from "this morning".

Need another example? Let's see how the AP is covering it (via ABC):

WASHINGTON May 4, 2006 (AP)— Rep. Patrick Kennedy crashed his car near the Capitol early Thursday, and a police official said he appeared intoxicated. Kennedy said he had taken sleep medication and a prescription anti-nausea drug that can cause drowsiness.

You'll notice that this is an updated story, containing the excuse Kennedy is using in his most recent statement, issued just a few hours ago (prescribed drugs, not alcohol). So the AP can't use the excuse, "we rushed the story out as it broke, so we couldn't change that sentence to be more of an honest reflection of the circumstances". "Early Thursday", is again technically accurate, but it's a totally dishonest portrayal of the actual incident.

As I said, Kennedy has released an updated "statement", trying to make excuses:

Later, however, he issued a longer statement saying the attending physician for Congress had prescribed Phenergan on Tuesday to treat Kennedy's gastroenteritis.

Kennedy said he returned to his Capitol Hill home on Wednesday evening after a final series of votes in Congress and took "prescribed" amounts of Phenergan and Ambien, another prescribed drug that he occasionally takes to fall asleep.

"Some time around 2:45 a.m., I drove the few blocks to the Capitol Complex believing I needed to vote," his second statement said. "Apparently, I was disoriented from the medication."

Kennedy appeared to be intoxicated when he crashed his Ford Mustand into a barrier on Capitol Hill early Thursday morning, said Louis P. Cannon, president of the Washington chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police.

(satire)Kennedy then tossed a few back and said, "Man, it's great to be a Kennedy" (followed by a laugh like that of Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies.) Meanwhile the mainstream media is frantically digging for this weeks "Bush scandal" in an effort to get negative headlines back aimed at the President and Republicans. Frantic NY Times reporters are digging through their stash of Abu Ghraib photo hoping they can find something new, after 60+ stories of repeating the same old story.(/satire>

On another note, I wonder what would be done had this been Jeb Bush or something? I can see the conspiracy theory crowd coming out with all of their Illuminati claims, for why he was driven home by police rather than treated like any other citizen. "They're forced to protect him because he's part of the dynasty, and is the next step in world domination plotted out for hundreds of years by the Bush's predecessors.

Anyway, my real prediction on this matter is this: Nothing will happen. Despite officers asking that they be allowed to complete their investigation, it won't happen. Even on the off chance it does, it won't matter because "the evidence" was taken care of when they drove Pattycakes home and didn't give him the usual field sobriety test (FST), that the rest of the public would get. I suppose the only way we could get the Capitol Hill Police to do anything is if we were to send Cynthia McKinney down there to slap them around a bit.

In an added twist, Dan Riehl notes that Kennedy had another recent accident, but this time involving a hammer rather than a vehicle. Riehl also wonders why it was so hard to find the story of Kennedy's earlier car accident. I think we all know why.

I also find it interesting that a quick "find" (ctrl+F or edit/find) of the word "Kennedy" reveals there is not one instance on the DailyKOS home page right now. Hmmm....

***UPDATE***
Flopping Aces remembers when the same Kennedy settled out of court, after shoving a female security guard at LAX a few years back. It would seem that the House Democrats have a problem with authority figures and a pattern of violence towards them.

***UPDATE***

More Pat Kennedy controversies, courtesy of Wikipedia:
* Kennedy has acknowledged being treated for cocaine use during his teenage years.[2]

* In 2000, Kennedy was accused of pushing a security guard at LAX. City prosecutors ultimately decided not to bring criminal charges against him and he paid an undisclosed civil settlement to the alleged victim almost two years later.[3] His critics have called this incident a "triple hate crime", as the security guard was an elderly black woman.[4]

* In 2000, Atlantic Navigation Company of Mystic, CT, claimed that a boat they rented to Kennedy was found abandoned off Martha's Vineyard and required $28,000 to repair. [5]

* In 2000, the Coast Guard was dispatched to Kennedy's yacht after he and his date became embroiled in an argument on his yacht off Martha's Vineyard.[6]

* In 2003, drew fire from his critics when he declared that "I have never worked a [bleeping] day in my life." [7]

Others:
Joust The Facts, Iowa Voice, The Sandbox, Stop the ACLU, Pundit Guy, Point Five, Donkey Stomp, Hot Air, The Political Pit Bull, Left Wing = Hate, Leaning Straight Up, A Blog For All, A Lady's Ruminations, Texas Rainmaker, Assorted Babble, GOP and the City, Wizbang, Just Barking Mad, Betsy Newmark, The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, Gina Cobb, Confederate Yankee, Say Anything, Conservababes, Boots and Sabers, Slobokan's Site, New England Republican, California Conservative, Right Wing Sparkle, Right on the Right, Unaccountable Liberals, No Agenda, Captain's Quarters

 

Christopher Hitchens was the driving force behind a pro-Denmark/pro-free speech held at the Danish Embassy today. Michelle Malkin has compiled a great list of bloggers who covered the event, including many with photo and video.

You can watch video of a brief statement by Hitchens at Expose the Left, who obtained the video from the Age of Hooper, where you can also see many photos from the event.

200 isn't a bad number for attendance, but here's my question... Where are all the free speech lefties? Where are the ACLU types? Where's the Hollywood left? These people can amass tens of thousands anytime they want to fight for the right to kill babies or whatever idiotic pet project they have on a given week... They can flood the streets of New York with all sorts of elaborate pseudo-parade floats screaming swears and letting middle fingers fly on live television over the RNC convention simple being held in the city... But freedom of speech comes under attack from Muslims around the world, the US media is largely cowering from the cartoon "protestors", yet the left can't find time to support Denmark and free speech!?

The left claim on many occasions to recognize the importance of free speech, but when it comes to insulting Islam they are no where to be found... Are they just busy? Clooney must be writing more Abramoff jokes? The musicians are too setting up an anti-war concert in NY... Where's Michael Moore though? Surely he'd be at a rally to support free speech when it's under world wide attack, right?

I suppose they all cancelled when they found out the event didn't have a dress code that included anarchy t-shirts, ski masks, and a molotov cocktail for each hand. The left was also probably disappointed to find out the event wouldn't be distracting hundreds of police from real police work because they had no reason to believe this group was going to get out of hand and cause any sort of mayhem or vandalism, the way lefty protests usually do.

Yeah, don't worry American left, this isn't an important issue... Just freedom of speech under attack around the globe that has so far resulted in the deaths of hundreds and the burnings of countless buildings, embassies, and fast food joints, all over a couple stupid cartoons. You should be much more concerned about the Tookie Williams of the world and whether they should not get put to death for being serial murderers. Your priorities are on target folks... really.

More blogger reax (many with rally photos):
Soldiers' Angels Germany, The Larsonian, Kim Priestap, Liberty Just In Case, Iowa Voice, Mazurland, The Political Pit Bull

It all looks and sounds a bit different from the New Black Panther Party's "protest" held at the same location the other day. Malik Zulu Shabazz was only able to get a dozen (give or take) idiots in masks to come chant their nutcasery, and threaten the counter protesters.