In what seems like has taken forever, former GOP State Senator Greg Barkus has received his punishment for his involvement in a boat crash that happened in August 2009.

Barkus reportedly accepted a four-year deferred prison sentence, $29,000 in fines and supervised probation.

At first glance, that seems like a pretty hefty fine. But since he almost killed several people, it might be considered a pretty light sentence overall because there was no jail time.

I’ve written about the boat crash several times and was waiting for the final word to come down before making any final comments. Since it involved Congressman Denny Rehberg, a couple of his staffers, a state senator and his wife, it was a pretty juicy story and received national attention.

The bottom line to all this was someone was intoxicated and operated a motorized vehicle. In this case it was a boat. When you are the operator of a vehicle you are responsible for the safety of your passengers. Barkus should thank God that he did not kill any of his passengers. His actions that night were way below the standards that citizens expect from our elected officials (he was a state senator at the time of the accident) and for just about every other human being.

Let’s just hope he learned a valuable lesson.

Editor’s Note: After this column was posted and after hearing from some faithful readers, I have edited the column for clarity.