Buckle Up
Heedless, Senseless, Reckless: Former Congressman Helen Chenoweth Died as She Lived
By Joan Opyr, 10-05-06
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Let’s stop tarting this up. Let’s stop pretending that former Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth-Hage was just another "colorful" Idaho eccentric with a powerful libertarian streak. She was a nut -- a dangerous, reckless, senseless nut whose death in a single car accident in Nevada on October 2nd was tragic but not really a surprise. Why wasn’t Chenoweth-Hage wearing a seatbelt? Because she didn’t need no stinking seatbelt, never mind the dictates of common sense and Nevada law.
Worse, when the SUV in which Chenoweth-Hage was riding rolled over in a single-car accident, the ex-politician was carrying an infant child on her lap. In addition to seatbelts for adults, Nevada law requires that children be safely buckled into child safety seats. Thanks only to dumb luck and blind fate, the infant, who was thrown from the vehicle along with Chenoweth-Hage, survived the accident.
For three tumultuous terms, Helen Chenoweth -- she didn’t marry rancher and leader of the Sagebrush Rebellion, Wayne Hage until after she’d left office -- represented Idaho’s 1st Congressional District. How did she represent us? As militia-loving loonies who believed that the United States government was at least partially to blame for the Oklahoma City bombing. She infamously declared that she didn’t see how salmon could be endangered when she could buy fish in the can at Albertson’s. She was anti-government, anti-environmental regulation, and frighteningly close in her ideology and public statements to the bigots like Randy Weaver and Bo Gritz who have given Idaho such a bad name nationally. Helen Chenoweth once said that Idaho was predominantly white because our climate is too cold for most people of color. When she opened her mouth, it was usually to change feet.
For the six long years that Helen Chenoweth held elective office, Idaho's moderates, liberals, and conservatives with common sense, collectively took to the bed. She embarrassed us. She made Idahoans look ignorant, foolish and out of touch. She believed in vast government conspiracies and black helicopters. She was listed in The Progressive as one of The Ten Dimmest Bulbs in Congress -- voted in not by Democrats, but by her fellow Republicans.
I am truly sorry Helen Chenoweth-Hage is dead. I am sorry for her family and friends. I am sorry because she should still be here, larger than life and twice as goofy. But Chenoweth-Hage is not here. She died because she chose to flout the law by not wearing a seatbelt. Surely she knew better. Surely she knew that if the vehicle she was traveling in crashed, she was far morely to be killed because she'd neglected to take a very simple -- and legally-mandated -- safety precaution. One might argue that Chenoweth-Hage had the right to risk her own life, but she had no right to risk that of the five-month old infant on her lap. That was always the problem with Chenoweth-Hage: she could never tell the difference between her own ill-informed opinions and good government policy.
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Comments
Rest in peace and welcome to heaven Helen.
Sorry you are so bitter Ms. Opyr.
A nice old grandmother died trying to make a baby stop crying after a long trip.
Don't you have better things to do than laugh about it?
Maybe she died the same way Sen Wellstone (D) Minn died - for standing up to the powers that be... the A B C s of Tyranny?
And ariel, you shouldn't stop taking your meds without consulting a doctor first.
Paul, I am so sorry for you and the rest of Helen's family to have to read the hate from these folks. I have very grave concern for our great country and it's survival when I see this blind hate expressed even against the dead.
You wanna know what a true conservative is, read John Dean's latest book. Frank Church would have worked with Helen and tried to bring her around. He was a truly fine person. So was Helen, but she played to an audience way, way out of the mainstream. A tragic loss, yes. But chances are she'd still be around had she just worn the darn seat belt.
Oh, but you were always sweetness and light when it came to the Clintons, right?
Does being dead absolve people of callous disregard for the law . . . endangering children . . . endangering themselves? Are those of you who defend Helen Chenoweth's actions so blindly partisan that you only indict someone for illegality if they don't belong to your party? Maybe you would absolve a democrat if they died in the process, but I doubt it.
I guess you could say Chenoweth died for her principals . . . after all, choosing to die so that you could exercise your personal choice NOT to wear a seatbelt is a principled libertarian decision of a sort . . . a stupid one, but principled nonetheless I guess. Still I prefer that definition of libertarian that says that "you can do what you like as long as it doesn't impinge upon someone else." With a baby in her arms, I think she gave up her right . . .libertarian or otherwise . . . not to wear her seatbelt, much less to have a child out of a child seat. What does it matter that she was "nice old grandmother (who died) trying to make a baby stop crying after a long trip," as one reader stupidly observed? Does that mean she can endanger a child? Couldn't they pull over? That's what I do with MY daughter when she gets fussy. I guess that kind of common sense safety concern only applies to liberals. We wouldn't want to impinge upon a libertarian's right to calm a baby while speeding down a highway unrestrained!
With any luck, Chenoweth realized -- as she flew through the air in her final moments with her grandchild in her arms -- that her brand of libertarianism had consequences for someone other than herself. In any case, it was too little and too late for an epiphany.
It was only days after Chenoweth ran campaign ads against her opponent (linking him to Bill Clinton's tryst through political innuendo) in 1998 that her own affair with a married man was revealed. Her defense? That Clinton lied about his affair, and she didn't. (she also played the useful "god forgives me" get-out-of-jail-free card)
But it turned out she lied about that too, scolding a reporter for the Spokeman-Review in 1995 for even suggesting the rumors about her various affairs could be true.
If you're a selfservative with a history of affairs with married men, what do you do when issues related to the institution of marriage come up? Blame the gays and the liberals. Works well for Rush Limbaugh, who is currently seeking (soon to be ex-) wife #4.
A true right wing ideologue will NEVER fully take responsibility for their own actions. They have too many blind followers - with a false image of their own lives and their own political movement to uphold - who depend on that ideologue for "strength" in fighting the demonic liberals.
Jeb: wearing a seatbelt doesn't help much in a plane crash. Bad analogy. And, in case you don't remember, Rush Limbaugh - hero of the hypocritical "Christian" right - did take joy in mocking those who attended the Wellstone funeral, claiming "there were no tears or grief." No liberal commentator would be able to get away with this kind of outrageous lie.
the hypocritical witch is DEAD ...the devil's probably having a good time today!
If Helen died because she was not smart enough to wear a seat belt, and her daughter in law didn't have the car seat she needed, it is a shame. And not being smart is a handicap at any level. We should not throw stones at people who are not smart for it is not nice, and they are a protected class. I would think someone who did not accept how Helen voted or what she said or what principles she followed would not stoop to call her stupid or dumb. Differently advantaged perhaps. And I don't think mean spirited would be appropriate for Helen either. By the grace of God, the grandchild was spared, and we should all be thankful, and leave it at that, for we can no longer change Helen, nor can we go back in time to put on seat belts.
When you hurl your vitriol at Helen, save some for your liberal friends in Congress who let Rep. Gerry Studds have oral sex with pages in the Capitol elevators without consequence, and allowed him to serve another 13 years with seniority intact, chairing his subcommittees. That was when Tom Foley of Spokane was Speaker, and the iron first of Leadership in the House knew and did nothing, and were Democrats all.
Nasty begat nasty. bear bait
Paul Palmer, I apologize for the rudeness for some of my fellow Idahoans. Evidently the Aryan Brotherhood isn’t the only vitriolic haters in northern Idaho.
Many of us wanted Helen to run for a fourth term which she could have won easily. As one of the freshmen congressmen to be elected in the conservative house sweep of 1994's Contract with America, Helen, unlike many, stuck to her term limit promise even though term limit legislation failed.
Helen’s promise to depart opened up the seat for the very capable Butch Otter our next Governor of Idaho. Godspeed Helen and thanks for your representation.
He was a strong Democrat, and represented New Bedford and New England commercial fishermen with vigah. His being openly gay means nothing to me. That he was a sexual predator towards Capitol page boys, got caught, and was not punished by the Speaker or fellow Democrats who controlled the House at the time is true, and a big black F in the Democrat ethics column, if Congressional ethics is not now an oxymoron.
Either way, he is gone, the past is the past, and like Helen Chenoweth, he served his District well, his party loyally, and may they rest in peace. bear bait
Great piece about Helen. I had forgotten all about her, the ignorant, asinine little @$#^#@!!! I was wondering what had happened to her since I couldn't find her name in the Congressional Record.
Sorry to hear about her death. I mean, I don't wish ill on anyone but she didn't have to die. All she had to do was fasten her seat belt and drive. Two seconds was all it would have taken and she would stiill be here. Fact:Seat belts save lives. Fact:Wearing a helmet while operating or being a passenger on a motorcycle could save your life. It saved mine. As a student at Indiana University a good friend of mine invited me to ride on his new Kawasaki. Before we took off he insisted that I wear a helmet. To make a long story shorter the drivers of a pickup and a sedan decided to go in opposite dirtections and we got caught between them. I went flying and my friend was hanging on to the handlebars of the bike until he hit the pavement. He had a bad case of road burn while I was banged up a bit. We survived and lived to laugh about it. Helen could have had the same experience. Had she lived and that baby died she would have been charged with child endangerment. What was she thinking? She knew better. She knew better. If she wanted to risk her neck fine and dandy. No loss. But she had no right-none!-to risk the life of a human being that hadn't even started yet.
To you hicks, her supporters, let it be known that that intelligent former Congresswoman announced at some point that if a species went extinct, didn't another one come into existence to replace it?
I. Jones, you are likely right if there is an underworld. And, Jim Wilkinson, now that Pombo has been kicked out of Congress, he will have time to reflect on his probable future.
Humans seem to show up at the same time as mega fauna extinctions, across the world. They also seem to have been determining vegetative responses on vast landscapes since they arrived. And since humans have shown up, many plants and animals have changed enough to become distinct species. Ms. Chenoweth's ideas might have more merit than you have brashly opined.
Hicks are the folks who have the bumper sticker that says "My kid kicked the crap out of your honor student." Happen to you, Chuck?