Buckle Up

Heedless, Senseless, Reckless: Former Congressman Helen Chenoweth Died as She Lived

Welcome to Heaven Helen!

If you are sorry about her death, I'd sure hate to see you happy!
Rest in peace and welcome to heaven Helen.
Sorry you are so bitter Ms. Opyr.

Good to see liberals taking the high road as always - being compassionate and tactful in a time of tragedy . . . not using the death of a politician as a bully pulpit from which to launch their vitrole. You know, like at Paul Wellstone's funeral . . . .

Ding-ding-ding-ding! Opyr wins top slot of the Ten Dimmest Commentators of New West, voted in not by her fellows commentators, but by her readers. Pitiful and pathetic, only somebody as stupid as Opyr would find the "irony" in her death. News update: The fact of death itself is the irony of ironies. All I can say, dear Joan, is buckle up! We would be aghast to hear your very own petard do the hoisting of a lifetime.

Sheesh ... bitter, much? Why don't you go pee on the White House lawn, it might make you feel better.

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?

Who killed Helen Chenoweth and Why? What if she really did not have a baby in her lap? and she was all alone? Did she know about the latest sex scandal in DC and was about to go public?
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?

I really don't understand the intellectual dishonesty and hypocrisy expressed in the above commentary. I'm Helen's cousin ... I'm sure she is not perfect as evidenced by her cause of death, however, I don't think you would be able to live in a glass house. Liberals just don't like and cannot win on the battlefield of ideas... the only way they can win is to try to destroy people's lives and families. The liberals "hate" Helen because she basically took down the "Frank Church regime." Commentaries like yours and the "obituaries" (hit pieces) in the Washington Post, LA Times and the other MSM cannot say anything nice about anybody that does not conform to "their" prevailing wisdom of the elite media.

First Mark Foley, now this... It's been a pretty hilarious week.

And ariel, you shouldn't stop taking your meds without consulting a doctor first.

This is the first time that I have been to your web site as I clicked there in reference to Helen Chenoweth Hage. Joan Opyr's article was the most insensitve, mean spirited piece that I have read in a long time. She was lambasting the dead in a very disrespectful way. I must say that this writing regardless of accuracy, facts or not, was the most disgusting piece of trash that I ever took the time to read. In the future if I see Joan Opyr's name attached to anything, in trash it goes.

WOW! I have never, until now, heard of Joan Opyr. To tell you the truth I am really happy about it. Helen lost her husband and sister both to cancer in a three month period. It's sad that you feel you have to use Helen to get your point accross. Shame on you. I knew Helen for 66 years and our parents were best friends. She was not perfect to be sure but at least had the guts to say and do what she believed in. Sound familiar? Doubt it.

Rose, it may be funny to you, I can't imagine the kind of mind that sees a connection between Foley and this family's loss. I can't imagine getting your jollies hurting innocent family members. What kind of hate and venom must reside in your mind and heart....sad.
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.

Yeah, she was a real "family" woman if you skip her self-admitted adultery and her deliberate endangering of her grandchild's life. For six years she was an embarrassment to Idaho and the West. Being stupid and selfish is not the same thiong as being conservative.

This article and its vitriol truly saddens me. The dead do not know nor do they care. The living die everytime they read something as senseless as this. Joan, I hope some day you will exerience the forgiveness that you fail to find the words to express here.

She can't pee on the White House lawn cause the black helicopters are watching.
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.

Always hilarious to see right-wingers like Paul Palmer argue that "Liberals just don't like and cannot win on the battlefield of ideas... the only way they can win is to try to destroy people's lives and families. The liberals "hate" Helen because she basically took down the "Frank Church regime." "

Oh, but you were always sweetness and light when it came to the Clintons, right?

The Clintons? Have either or both of them passed away? I promise I'm not going to gloat or write nasty stuff about them, I just missed it. Nothing would be gained by hurting Chelsey or the rest of their family members.

Pretty remarkable how ignorant partisans stick together. You certainly are following in the Helen Chenoweth tradition.

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.

Kevin, does it make you feel better this Sunday afternoon to know you have the power to hurt her family? I hope so, it would be the only postive thing to come from your hatred. She is beyond hurting.

Chenoweth might have been a nice lady, with a devoted cadre of blind ideological followers (see above) - but as a politician, she really defined what it meant to be a "selfservative" right wing Christian.

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.

-Good to see liberals taking the high road as always - being compassionate and tactful in a time of tragedy . . . not using the death of a politician as a bully pulpit from which to launch their vitrole. You know, like at Paul Wellstone's funeral . . . . -

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.

Ding dong
the hypocritical witch is DEAD ...the devil's probably having a good time today!

Helen was elected to three terms in the House. Evidently, the majority in her district were right wing hicks out to bring shame to Idaho. She said she would serve three terms, and only three terms, which was what she did. She was a conservative from a mostly rural area, and she was elected because voted did her constituents wishes. I guess the blue in the blue county description comes from lack of oxygen due to hissy fits.

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

But, but, Mark Foley is/was a Republican. And what about Don Sherwood, a Pennsylvania Republican, who is apologizing on the air these days for his extramarital affair. And what about Newt Gingrich's dumping of his wife as she lay on a hospital bed suffering from cancer? Gee, this sanctimonious behavior crosses party lines. Doesn't it?

Joan: Your words are comically unoriginal yet sadly revealing of your character. Chenoweth is dead. She is no longer a public figure or threat to your politics. Call off the dogs and get a life.

Ding dong the witch is dead!

Wolverine says: Joan can't pee on the White House lawn cause the black helicopters are watching. Maybe she might want to try Dick Cheney’s Yard in Jackson Hole, there’s little or no security when he’s not in town. It would be interesting to see what would follow if Mary Cheney caught her doing so.

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.

Joan: See, I got to chastise Gerry Studds while he was alive. I just heard on the radio he has died.

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

I'm with you, Joan. Hang in there. Self-righteous and sanctimonious and selfish to the bitter end.

Howdy, Joan:

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.

Goodbye Helen. Say hello to Sonny Bono for me. Look out Richard Pombo. Remember kiddies, it's not nice to screw Mother Nature. And the fact that she was thrown (bucked) from an SUV gives it just that little extra shot of irony.

Congrats on making the back page of HCN!.

Joan - Helen stood up for what she believed in, and you know so much about her and what she did to show that. When you die I hope someone leaves a more gracious comment about your life then this debacle of an article.

Being late in catching up with my reading of The High Country News, I've just seen a digest of Ms. Opyr's column on the departure of Chenoweth whose typical ignorance of sense apparently led to her death. I followed her distressful anti-environmental stance in Congress thru her years with disgust and welcomed her departure from that body, the best one money could buy. Thank you, Ms. Opyr for your thoughts, and thanks to your supporters for agreeing with them.

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.

Chuck....kicking corpses doesn't do much good. The question I would ask of you is why, for you and your ilk, diversity is such a good deal in ecololgy or society, and such a bad deal in legislative bodies? Chenoweth represented a constituency through the democratic process of election, and you don't. I rather like a Congress with diverse ideas, including the late Rep. Chenoweth's. I also like honorable people who do what they say they will do if elected. She did, including limiting her service. I did not always agree with her, nor will I agree with much of what you have to say. Calling people hicks is arrogant, urban, divisive, and does not advance your ideas one iota.

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?

Mr Miller - You speak strongly against Ms. Chenoweth-Hage - Words are as powerful as any force, yet you have never met her. If she was in front of you would you say, I cant wait until you anti environmental hick dies and leaves your body? Praising the death of a person reflects your thought process and hate for someone you have never met. Which is personally sad, and i will pray for your soul. Because there will be a day in which your soul leaves your physical body, and your soul is a reflection of your thought process and the way you live your life. In seeing your exaltation of her death, it seems hate has gripped you something Miss Chenoweth-Hage never had concerns about.