am i right?

at the same time, i don’t quite agree with your take on this sad case, for several reasons: (1) democrats always jump on conservatives who get into trouble (eg rush limbaugh and pain meds, bill bennett and gambling, etc) as hypocrites. they jump all over a conservative who goes wrong as someone who doesn’t practice what he preaches. i see why this is fun for them, but do you see how different it is when conservatives go wrong and when liberals go wrong? pete coors, for example (along with limbaugh and bennett) acknowledged his mistake, apologized, and, presumably, will not be repeating his wrongful conduct.

unlike your recently referenced mr. jefferson and his frozen bribes, mr. and ms. clinton and their shady real estate deals, sexual abuse of subordinates, questionable pardons, perjuries, and other high crimes, and kofi and kojo anan and their kickbacks from dictators (just to name a few), mr. coors has owned up to his mistake like a civilized person should. we should give him a little credit for that.

apparently he was also eight-thousands of a point from being legally sober and passing the field sobriety test (kyer said his BAC was .88 and the limit is 0.8, but the legal limit is actually over a decimal point, at .08 and coors was at .088). which brings me to my second point (2): he may have honestly thought he was sober enough to drive. lots of people (even republicans and people who work in the beer industry) fail to designate a driver, opting instead to divide their alcohol intake by the number of hours they’ve been drinking to figure out if they’re drunk or sober. pete might suck at math. i know i do.

i suppose they could put him in prison, but i know a lot of people who have several DUIs and have never seen the inside of a jail cell, which brings me to (3): i think repeat offenders should get the harshest treatment by the criminal justice system, regardless of whether they are beer company CEOs.

“Can anybody explain why anyone who has been driving under the influence gets to keep driving?” (emphasis yours)

You can’t rake P.Coors and then say “it’s not like it was some twenty-something…” Any idiot who has a little (or a lot) too much to drink is putting himself above the safety of other citizens.

Anyhow, I’m not Pete Coors’ personal apologist, I’m just saying he shouldn’t be singled out over anyone else — beer mogul or not.

This isn’t like Zidane who offers a non-apology “I apologize to all the children, but not to Materazzi” (paraphrase). Like I said, Coors owned up, and acknowledged his hypocrisy.

This is not a twenty-something getting pulled over while being barely over the limit after having a couple drinks with buddies at a local bar.

This is Pete “Don’t the Rocky Mountains Make You Want to Drink Beer?” Coors. He knows better. And now he has shown himself to be not just a hypocrite, but a danger to society. He put himself above the safety of his fellow citizens.

Shame. Total shame.

Over is still over, but it’s not like he was blasted. And don’t you find it just a little bit odd he was pulled over about a block from his house?

The guy apologized and admitted it was wrong for him to have done something so stupid at the same time his company advocated responsible drinking.

There was absolutely no need to publicize this incident other than to humiliate him.