That's the title of an editorial in today's New York Daily News - man, when even the liberal media is getting on you while you lie in a hospital bed, you know you've got some baggage to contend with:
While we continue to wish New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine a swift and complete recovery, new facts about his near-fatal accident indicate he might not be in the position he is in - on a ventilator in intensive care - had he and his driver obeyed the law.
Soon after last Thursday's crash, it was reported the governor, in violation of state law, had not worn a seat belt. His injuries, and reports that the impact threw him from front seat to cargo bay, indicated something might have been amiss.
Now, the state police superintendent admits the gov's SUV, driven by a state trooper, was doing 91 mph. For the trooper, and Corzine - who one must presume was not oblivious - to be traveling at that speed (lights a-strobing, too) on the 65-mph Garden State Parkway was irresponsible and endangered everyone in their vicinity. Is it any wonder other vehicles were swerving on the highway?
And to what emergency was the governor responding? To that life-and-death meeting between Don Imus and the Rutgers women's basketball team...
Sounds like the Daily News read our post on Tuesday....
The Philadelphia Inquirer tries to clear the trooper at the wheel:
State Police Superintendent Col. Joseph "Rick" Fuentes said that the governor's drivers would be asked to obey all traffic laws in a nonemergency situation, but added that troopers have discretion to use emergency lights and to speed, as necessary.
"There are no guidelines . . . nothing about a maximum speed in the normal course of transporting the governor," he said.
Somebody please tell that trooper that he used his discretion poorly…
Finally, they're getting hot under the collar in South Jersey as well - from the Cherry Hill Courier Post:
It is outrageous in a state where people are ticketed every day for not buckling up that the governor would foolishly not wear a seat belt and allow his motorcade to travel dangerously fast -- 91 mph according to information retrieved from a black box in Corzine's state Chevrolet Suburban.
Corzine's driver, State Trooper Robert Rasinski, said didn't realize he was going 91 mph -- 26 mph above the speed limit -- according to State Police Superintendent Col. Joseph "Rick" Fuentes.
We don't buy it. Anyone who has ever driven would easily know, without looking at the speedometer, the difference between going 65 mph, the speed limit on the parkway in Galloway where the crash occurred, and 91 mph. Rasinski and Corzine, sitting in the front passenger seat, may not have known their exact speed, but there's no way they didn't know they were going much faster than the speed limit.
Corzine's two-vehicle motorcade put other New Jerseyans' lives at risk by needlessly going so fast...
But really, what is the importance of the lives of a few blue-collar New Jerseyans compared to the pressing need of a governor to pose next to a disgraced shock jock?
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