Tea Party Republican Mark Biviano is learning through some unrelenting Arkansas Democrat-Gazette exposure that it is the coverup that can get you in trouble.
The Searcy state representative left the scene of an accident April 9 following his attendance at the five-course, $150-a-head bacon and bourbon dinner at Ashley’s in the Capital Hotel. The woman whose car was hit by Biviano’s pickup said he drove off without providing information on insurance. He said he did in the one interview he gave the D-G on the subject. (But if he did, why did the other driver have to run down his House of Representatives license plate to find out who he was?)
Biviano has continued to behave like a jerk, blaming the woman for the wreck and then compounding his problems by telling his hometown newspaper that he was the victim of a Democratic vendetta because he opposed health care reform. Yes. He essentially blamed his troubles on Barack Obama’s health reform law.
The Democrat-Gazette reported today that the woman he smacked, Michelle Hodges of Benton, has been a Republican primary voter.
“I belong to the Republican Party, and I am upset that there are people in the Republican Party that would behave in this manner,” she told the Democrat-Gazette. “I don’t feel like I should be quiet about it when somebody who is part of the party I support is behaving like that.”
Her subsequent comment to the newspaper should be a lesson to all in public life caught in embarrassing episodes: Apologize and shut up. Said Hodges:
I was just going to let this be, and then all of this arose. My intention at this point is to let people know he’s wrong, and he’s lying, and he’s behaving improperly for someone who’s in a position of power.
I guess Obama got to her, too.