Clinton Brown-Noser Busted For Drunk Driving

Sid Vicious was clocked doing 70 in a 30.

by Noel Sheppard | NewsBusters | January 12, 2008

Imagine if a longtime adviser for Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, or Fred Thompson had been arrested for drunk driving two nights before the New Hampshire primary. Do you think this would have gotten reported?

Probably as much as Hillary's crying game, or even more... correct?

Well, Newsweek's Stumper blog reported Friday evening that longtime Clinton adviser and confidante Sidney Blumenthal was so arrested in Nashua, New Hampshire, on Monday, astoundingly with no press coverage of the event:

Sgt. Mike Masella, one of the arresting officers, said the movements of a Buick caught his eye. "I observed all his erratic driving," Masella said. "When I first noticed him it was at an intersection. He abruptly stopped. That caught my eye ... He was drifting in his lane." Masella followed the car, a rental, for a mile and a half, and clocked its speed at 70mph in a 30mph zone--more than twice the legal limit. Masella pulled the car over at 12:30 a.m. Monday morning. Blumenthal told the officer he was returning to his hotel from a restaurant in Manchester. After declining to take a Breathalyzer, Masella says, Blumenthal failed a field sobriety test. Blumenthal was handcuffed, booked, had his fingerprints taken and was held for four hours--standard operating procedure in such arrests in New Hampshire--before posting bail and being released. (He will be arraigned later this month.) Because the car was moving at excessive speeds, Blumenthal was given the more serious charge of "aggravated" DWI--which carries a mandatory sentence of at least three days behind bars. "He's charged with a serious crime," says Nashua Police Capt. Peter Segal, who will oversee the case as it moves toward a court date.

As this occurred at 12:30 AM Monday, this means Blumenthal was arrested just hours before Hillary shed a tear in a New Hampshire diner dramatically changing the results of the following day's primary.

Did the Clinton campaign know that Blumenthal had been arrested hours earlier? Did this somehow get embargoed from the press, or did local media intentionally boycott it?

More importantly, how did this possibly elude so-called journalists for almost five full days? Would the same have happened if an adviser to a Republican presidential candidate had been arrested hours before a primary?

Finally, now that Newsweek has broken the story, and Drudge linked to it, will this get any coverage, or just stay buried?