Whenever an elected official acts stupid in an incident involving public drunkenness, we’re left to wonder if it was the liquor talking or if that’s just how they are.
The latest instance involves Kapolei-Makakilo Rep. Sharon Har, arrested the night of Feb. 22 for drunken driving while steering her late-model Mercedes the wrong way on busy one-way South Beretania Street.
Her initial public explanation — that a beer she had with dinner interacted with a prescription cough medicine — didn’t stand up to her unruly behavior described by police or her refusal to take a breath or blood test.
Arresting officer Christopher Morgado reported that Har, 52 and the mother of 3-year-old twins, “spoke with a slow, slurred speech, and had red, glassy eyes … I could smell a strong odor of a consumed alcoholic type beverage coming from within the vehicle, and would get stronger as she spoke.”
Police said Har, unsteady on her feet, cried “Black Lives Matter,” asked if they knew who she was and said they were ruining her plans “to be the next governor.” (To which one politically astute reader commented, “Har, Har, Har.”)
Police said she told them she hadn’t taken prescription medications.
Unfortunately, it’s a situation we’ve seen before. I’m not going to list previous transgressors; they’ve paid their legal and political penalties and it’s unfair to dredge them up again every time there’s a new member of the club.
Let’s just say the club is getting big.
We’ve seen politicos under the influence arrested on multiple DUIs, rant incoherently at cops, side-swipe another car and leave the scene, get busted for wild partying in New Orleans, blow public funds at strip clubs, and like Har, take goofy mug shots that outdo Webster at defining the term “s**t-faced.”
Har, more than most, should have known better.
She was a victim of a drunken driver herself in a 2007 collision that totaled her Mercedes and left her hospitalized and fearful she wouldn’t survive.
It led her to sponsor Hawaii’s ignition interlock law to prevent drunken driving and help pass a law that will now likely do her in — mandating a two-year license suspension for refusing a breath or blood test.
But like the others, she could count on fellow pols rallying to her side.
All House Speaker Scott Saiki could muster was that the incident was “unfortunate,” and Vice Speaker John Mizuno assured her that constituents will forgive (usually, they actually don’t).
Republican Rep. Gene Ward lavishly praised his Democratic colleague’s fight and debate skills and predicted she’ll rebound now that she’s “fessed up to her faults,” which is suspect after police cast so much doubt on her one beer and cough medicine story.
If Har worries more about escaping political consequences for this breach of trust than dealing with the demons that caused it, it’ll be more foolish than her reported behavior at the arrest scene.
Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.
