Integrity? I Don't Need No Stinkin' Integrity!!Could you imagine if that was one of us?
Obama finally pays local parking tickets
By George P. Hassett
Before Barack Obama was a United States senator and a presidential hopeful, he was a Harvard University law student living in Somerville who parked in bus stops and accumulated hundreds of dollars in parking tickets.
And for nearly two decades those parking tickets went unpaid, until a representative of Obama’s settled all his outstanding debts with Cambridge’s Traffic, Parking and Transportation Department Jan. 26. Obama attended Harvard Law School from 1988 to 1991.
Records show that between Oct. 5, 1988 and Jan. 12, 1990 Obama was cited for 17 traffic violations, sometimes committing two in the same day. The abuses included parking in a resident permit area, parking in a bus stop and failing to pay the meter. Twelve of Obama’s 17 tickets were given to him on Massachusetts Avenue.
In one eight day stretch in 1988, Obama was cited seven times for parking violations and was fined $45. Thirteen of the 17 violations occurred within one month in 1988. Obama’s disobedience of the rules of the road earned him $140 in fines from the City of Cambridge. The tickets went unpaid for over 17 years and $260 in late fees were added to the tab.
Obama spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said the presidential candidate’s parking violations were not relevant.
posted by Kevin Whiteman at
5:20 PM
4 Comments:
Not relevant? Don't the multiple violations, unpaid for decades, show that this guy thinks he's something special, i.e., above the law. Do we want a scoflaw as President?
More and more I think that politics:
A: Corrupts people
B: Attracts corrupt people
Funny, in my Professional Responsibility class, they told us that having multiple traffic/parking violations could disqualify us from sitting for the Bar . . .
Seventeen years and only $260 in late fees? Hmmmmmm......
I know that I owed a substantially smaller number of parking tickets, in Cambridge and Brookline, and two years later my renewal application for a car tag was declined and my license to drive was to be suspended when it came up for renewal -- unless I paid the original fines, a triple penalty (fines) AND sheriff's fees for collection.
How is it that Obama's costs only rose from $140 in tickets to $400 in total costs, over 17 years?
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