More wacky late-summer tales, just for you! This one involves New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, the one with the resume, and the corruption. His life has very little purpose right now. That’s a good thing! The man deserves a break from his prison of Ambition, a passion that has kept him busy in hundreds of semi-important government jobs over the years. Now he has time to dance! He also has time to flee boat crashes — you know, like when the boat he’s on demolishes another boat, and destroys a marina in general, and then he and his buddies just pop off and never tell anyone. This is something Bill Richardson has time to do now!
The New Mexico Independent reports on the growing controversy surrounding this, the Pounding of Elephant Butte:
Gov. Bill Richardson, his chief of staff Brian Condit, budget secretary Katherine Miller and security officers were gone within minutes from the scene of an accident Saturday in which a houseboat was sideswiped and another was smashed into at Elephant Butte State Park, according to an eyewitness.
State officials have cited Condit with operating a vessel in a negligent manner and damaging another person’s property. He was at the helm of the houseboat that caused the accident.
Within three minutes of the houseboat docking the governor’s party took a small boat to shore. There they got into two vehicles and left, said Carl Shaw, Jr. whose houseboat was grazed in Saturday’s accident.
This “Brian” Condit did notify authorities, of course — two days later! By that time, Bill Richardson had long since fled to Outer Space.
A man later identified as Condit was seen operating “Bloody Mary,” a houseboat owned by Leon “Skip” Fay of Rio Rancho. Condit piloted the houseboat into the marina, but came too close to C-dock, sideswiping Shaw’s houseboat. Then the “Bloody Mary” accelerated. At this point Fay took control from Condit, but it was too late, witnesses said. The houseboat, thrust by momentum, headed across the slip toward D-dock and smashed into a second houseboat, “The Floating Irish.”
The incident report estimates the damage to “The Floating Irish” at more than $10,000. The reporting officer writes also that the owners of the Dam Site marina told him that underwater structures below D-dock were damaged. Shaw’s houseboat suffered very minimal damage.
Unlike many of the witnesses who spoke with officers the same day as the incident, the report notes that Condit called officer Chris Bolen two days later, on Monday.
So unnecessary. It really would’ve made life easier for these people if they’d called the police immediately and paid whatever damages, instead of delving into a hit-and-run cover-up political scandal, for kicks.
Richardson left scene of houseboat accident within minutes [New Mexico Independent]
{ 42 comments }
Drunk driving is the national sport of New Mexico. Bill’s just expanding the playing field a little. What, no mistress on board? Oh yeah, he’s a Dem.
Sara must’ve been the alt-text enforcer. Since she’s been gone, there has been a real dearth of it.
Pounding an elephant’s butt? Credit to him if he actually did it.
Why is it that boat people can’t resist the most egregious puns when naming their crafts & facilities? So annoying.
Haha. Elephant Butte. Haha.
is it too soon to name the Health Care Reform bill after Richardson?
Goddamit I did not see Newell’s tag. But still, Elephant Butte!
“Elephant Butte”, State Park, really Is this a park for French, wide-stanced Republicans? And the “Floating Irish?”, shit, that’s my nickname every weekend. And it’s usually those three Bloody Mary’s I have with brunch that does it..damn.
[re=407836]Red Zeppelin[/re]: A mistress would have been completely in keeping with the Democratic Party. It’s the absence of a young ‘steward’ (a/k/a ‘cabin-boy’) that proves he’s not a Republican.
What are New Mexicans doing with boats and marinas? They live in a big frickin desert. Motoring around in the water supply for a major city or two?
OMG. That poor horse.
An accident in Elephant Butte puts everyone in deep shit.
[re=407844]Norbert[/re]: No. And this ‘accident’ was his Chappaquiddick.
Full circle.
Please tell me that the mispronounced word “occifer” appears numerous times in the police report.
Bloody Mary smashed the floating Irish on an elephant’s butt? That’s not what I remember from my English history.
I thought pounding elephant butt was Rahm’s job?
Able was I, ere I pounded Butte.
This is why Messican politicians need to stay away from drunken white folk. The first thing our people want to do after they get drunk is get on a boat, it’s how we ended up taking the country away from the Indians. So stay on that pony Bill, and don’t let him drink, he may have a couple of white ancestors ’cause when we start drinking, boats aren’t the only thing that looks good to us.
Where do you think Mr Ed came from?
[re=407868]Gopherit[/re]: It was, until Glenn Beck complained.
Can I change my vote to Bill Richardson?
That sound you hear is Joe Wilson breathing a deep sigh of relief now that he will no longer be the A topic on cable news.
If Obama’s erstwhile Secretary of Commerce can’t steer a simple houseboat, how on earth do we expect the government to manage universal healthcare?!
It wasn’t the alcohol that made them act like idiots. It was the pirate eyepatches and boots.
that reservoir’s about three feet deep, it’s in the middle of the fucking desert, and it’s full of houseboats, i kid you not. i know, for i have seen. and ted turner owns the world’s biggest creosote and atomic fallout ranch, just to the east.
i think the picture of richardson on the horse needs to be tagged with a couple of lines from “billy 4.” come on jim!
~lee.
I hope Condit bellowed out “RAMMING SPEED!” before he smacked into the other houseboat. Because that would have been awesome.
The names of everything in this story — the boats, the places, even the people — remind me yet again of why I was never allowed to join the middle class.
[re=407836]Red Zeppelin[/re]: God, Dems are so fucking boring. Where’s the dripping eyepatch underwear?
Bill Richardson, a famous political desert tortoise, does everything very slowly; when I saw him speak at Morongo, I was amazed by his ability to hover just above comatose in a dreamy dance with consciousness. This boat crash wasn’t his Chappaquiddick; it was his version of the end of James Dean. This is a human for whom the term “running for office” is but a euphemism: the poster boy for Slow Motion. Only two days to call the cops? That’s a snap judgment for Bill; he probably expects us to call him “Lightning” now.
Now he has time to dance!
Pretty sneaky bit of matchmaking there, Jim.
http://wonkette.com/410973/why-is-sonia-sotomayor-dancing-when-she-is-a-supreme-court-justice
Must’ve been all jealous of those guys up in Montana that one time last month.
Nice work at the wheel,Skipper, since houseboats go about 5 miles an hour max. Slow to turn, of course, but also just plain slow. And since there probably wasn’t any current, there’s no excuse.
Obviously, these very important New Mexican state officials were late for a very important appointment and they had no idea there had been an accident of any kind they were just running late and that’s why they had to leave so quickly and just as soon as they became aware of the fact that an accident is alleged to have happened why they reported to the authorities immediately.
When that wake from somebody who really was speeding hit the houseboat it caused the craft to slightly damage the other vessel.
Don’t you think the upcoming news conference is going to go something like that?
The houseboat in question was on loan from the new (all adobe) New Mexico Navy, and is part of our
secret weapons development program. We plan to send a flotilla of these butt-ramming
animal-house boats down the Rio Grange to attack the Republic of Texas as soon as we get back from a 3 margarita lunch.
Correction! That’s the Rio Ganges, of course.
the Pounding of Elephant Butte:
I think this is a copy-cat crime, some other story just like this appeared in the police blotters about a week ago, that time the perp. was a R-(Etard). I suspect alcohol may have been a contributing factor.
And on Monday, he was at Ruiduso Downs, welcoming back improbable Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird, who won at odds of about 200-1. Bet he had something to do with that too.
Big Bill did nothing wrong in this and all other instances of his actions these last seven years because he was and is surrounded by his security detail, who are State Police Officers. There is no way they would tolerate anyone doing something illegal; they cannot since they are officers of the law!
He could not tell them to do something illegal, they would not do it. If he said, “Rob that bank” they would not. If he said shoot that darn columnist, they (I hope) would not. If he said ignore the laws about anything, they would not could not.
In fact, I am sure they would arrest him in a heartbeat if he broke the law, just like they would arrest any other citizen of the great state of New Mexico who breaks the law. That is what makes this story interesting, that everything has to be on the up and up because there were police officers there when this happened. And, any attempt to interfere with an officer of the law by the governor and his staff is against the law.
So sleep well tonight, there could not have been any crime.
I was hoping his chief of staff was related to Gary Condit. But no. No relation that I can find. Boohoo.
That would bring back some excellent pre-9/11 hysterical new coverage!
It’s like right out of the movies. Caddy Shack to be specific, Flying Wasp scene.
[re=408195]kapish[/re]: When I bought my land near Deming NM, I was told it was on the shore of the Mimbres River! When I got there it was better than I thought–it’s right over the river, 400 ft above it, in fact. There went my dreams of opening a houseboat marina.
Long ago, when I was a wee teen (about 10 years ago, for me), my family of coloreds went down to Las Vegas’ Lake Mead Marina on a hot summer’s day to feed the monster, ghetto carp popcorn, as was our wont. What we lacked in boatage, we made up for in our love for the water (and monster, ghetto carp, of course). As we sat outside and had lunch on the misted and covered docks (everything is misted and covered in Vegas…everything), a drunk-fuck redneck, and his drunk-fuck old lady (these mascots are, in fact, on the Las Vegas city seal and flag) were pulling into the marina entirely too fast. So, the drunk-fuck redneck and his drunk-fuck old lady clip. every. single. fucking. boat. on one side of the dock, only being stopped from hitting the main boardwalk everyone was on because upon hitting the last boat, he lost his momentum. There were dozens of us on the main boardwalk, and to our surprise the guy, shit-faced drunk, attempts to make a run for it, fortunately, to be stopped by a boater on the other side of the dock who pulls out of his slip keeping the guy from running back into Lake Mead (where he’d be caught anyway, duh).
Anyway, lesson is, don’t go fucking boating, drunk, in the Southwest, you damned redneck birthers. Gah.
This only goes to show that no good can come from hanging out with people from Rio Rancho. When will New Mexico learn?
Comments on this entry are closed.