Almost every day we see a story about someone driving drunk, having an accident, and someone getting killed. Sometimes when I read a story about drunk driving in the newspaper or on the web, I shake my head and wonder why someone could be so dumb.
Sometimes it happens to the staff of public officials, like we saw a few years ago in the Martz administration. It gets a little more attention then, either because we expect more from our public officials and from those they employ, or because the media feels they need to report a little more on stories regarding public officials.
Maybe you happened to read, “Baucus campaign staffer charged” in the Billings Gazette on Tuesday. According to the story, an employee of the Senator’s, John Patrick Carey, 28, was charged “with vehicular homicide while under the influence in connection with a fatal accident in Billings on April 20.” Another young man, who was a passenger in the vehicle, also 28 years old, was killed in the accident.
A life no more – a future wasted because of one person’s dumb act.
The Gazette reported that Carey was “a junior member of Baucus’ Bozeman campaign office” from a statement sent by the Baucus campaign, where it was also announced that Carey had resigned.
It appears he may have worked for Baucus for a few years, not just on his campaign. According to the website, LegiStorm.com, a John P. Carey worked for Senator Baucus on his professional (taxpayer funded) staff in Washington, D.C. for a few years, starting in February 2006 as a staff assistant, and then as a legislative correspondent.
The Gazette also reported: According to court documents, Carey was convicted of operating a vehicle with an alcohol concentration of 0.08 or greater in 2000 and of driving with an alcohol concentration of 0.02 or greater while under 21 years of age in 1998.
Driving drunk is just a real dim-witted thing to do whether it’s done by a public official, by the staff of a public official, or by John or Jane Doe.
Many folks have been affected in some way by the act of a drunk driver. I remember a night many years ago when I was about 8 years-old. My mother received a phone call telling her that a drunk driver had hit my sister’s car head-on. Luckily she was not killed, but she suffered serious injuries that prevented her from graduating from high school for a year. The injuries she received due to an act by a stupid person has affected her all her life as well as the lives of her two passengers. In my family’s case, the drunk driver left the area and left my parents to pay the steep medical bills for my sister. The parents of the other two passengers paid for their children’s hospital bills, too.
It’s time to significantly increase the penalties for driving intoxicated in this state. We see people convicted three, four, and five or more times, but they still manage to get behind the wheel and cause harm to others.
Sad. Tragic. Dumb.
The Western Word 
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I agree completely and when i saw this sad.tragic.dumb post was about to respond the same. My prayers are with both Johnny and Matt’s families.
Sad. Tragic. Dumb. On BOTH of their parts. They BOTH decided to go out, get drunk and drive home. No one pushed or coerced Matt into the car. They decided together to drink too much and take the car out. And they are BOTH paying for it. Matt with his life, Johnny with his career, through the judicial system and most horribly, having to live with his side of the responsibility that this decision resulted in the death of his best friend. Believe me, he will live with that, and agonize over it the rest of his life. He is responsible, no doubt. Matt holds some responsibility as well. While that may sound cold when someone has died, it is a fact. His being an employee of Baucus has nothing to do with what has happened, it’s just something that the media and others like to sensationalize.