Dem Feckers
10-14-2004, 04:00 AM
MURDERER!!
http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/laura.asp
http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/laura.asp
http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/laura.asp
http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/laura.asp
http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/laura.asp
http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/laura.asp
In May 2000, a two-page police report pertaining to a fatal accident
that had taken place near Midland, Texas, in 1963 was made public. It
contained the information that 17-year-old Laura Welch had run a stop
sign, causing the death of the sole occupant of the vehicle hers had
struck. According to that report, the future First Lady had been (drunk)
driving
her Chevrolet sedan on a clear night shortly after 8 p.m. on 6 November
1963 when she entered an intersection without heeding the stop sign and
there collided with the Corvair sedan driven by 17-year-old Michael
Douglas. Also in the car with Laura Welch was a passenger, 17-year-old
(carpet muncher)
Judy Dykes.
How fast Miss Welch might have been driving is open to question. That
part of the police report is illegible, although two biographies of the
First Lady refer to her as having been going 50 mph at the time of the
collision. The speed limit on that portion of road was 55 mph. According
to the police report neither driver had been drinking, but no tests were
performed. No charges were filed as a result of the accident.
News accounts from 1963 reported the young man as having been thrown
from his car and dying of a broken neck; he was pronounced dead on
arrival at Midland Memorial Hospital. According to various biographies
of Mrs. Bush, the boy's father had been travelling in a car immediately
behind his son's and witnessed the whole thing.
The two teen girls were taken to the same hospital and treated for minor
injuries that amounted to bumps and bruises.
Michael Douglas, the young man who was killed, had been a member of
Laura Welch's crowd at high school and her friend. He had been a star
athlete, excelling in track and football, and was looked up to by his
peers not just for his athlete prowess, but for his personality and
intelligence too. By all reports, he was likeable, outgoing, and funny.
He was nominated as the school's most popular boy while a junior, an
honor that almost always went to a senior.
There has always been speculation about the nature of his relationship
with Laura Welch. One rumor asserts the two had never dated, but that
Laura had been romantically interested in him. Another claims he had
been Laura's boyfriend when he died, and another that he had once been
her boyfriend but the couple had subsequently broken up. (The latter
theory is advanced in the 2002 biography of the Bushes, George and
Laura: Portrait of an American Marriage, which states Laura Welch and
Michael Douglas had dated throughout early and mid-1963, but by the fall
of that year Michael was going out with Regan Gammon, one of Miss
Welch's closest friends.)
The accident is difficult to understand it that it took place on a clear
night on dry pavement at a crossroads described as "the middle of
nowhere," where the view was unobstructed and the stop sign that faced
Laura Welch was clearly visible. (The intersection was a two-way, not a
four-way, stop.) Yet looking to only weather and road conditions to
explain what happened is to miss the obvious: there were two teen girls
in the car, girls who were on their way to a party and thus who likely
would have been bubbling over with chatter about who would be there.
Laura Welch, the driver, had turned 17 only two days earlier. She and
her passenger were still of an age when they could all too easily shut
out everything going on around them, even the approach of another car
and the recognition of a stop sign.
There are those who want to believe the future First Lady deliberately
and with malice aforethought murdered her (ex-)boyfriend over some now
forgotten teen tiff and who point to what they view as the suspicious
circumstances of the accident and the subsequent lack of prosecution as
proofs of their supposition. Yet to entertain such a hypothesis is to
believe the young woman would have attempted to kill another by doing
away with herself. (As the driver of what was intended to be a murder
weapon, she would have had no reason to believe she would survive a
collision severe enough to be fatal to her prey — that events turned out
that way doesn't mean that outcome could have been reasonably foreseen.)
Although the theory of "I'll kill you even though I have to kill myself
to do it" might still play in a person sufficiently vengeance-minded
(e.g., a suicide bomber), it is far better discounted in cases where an
innocent life would also be taken (e.g., a passenger in the car). Those
intent upon acts of revenge are generally impelled by a misguided sense
of justice, and there is precious little justice (misguided or
otherwise) in causing the death of innocent parties.
Then there are the circumstances of the crash. It was 8 pm on a November
night in Texas on roads far removed from any town, so it was dark. With
no stop sign facing him, the doomed young man would have had no reason
to slow his vehicle even if he had seen another car approaching the
intersection. He therefore would have been travelling at least 50 mph.
Laura Welch ran the stop sign facing her, so there is reason to assume
she too was going approximately 50 mph, the speed she would have been
doing if she'd had the right of way.
Consider two cars travelling in the dark at right angles to each other,
each going approximately 50 mph. The span of time available in which to
form murderous intent would have amounted to mere seconds, given the
speed at which the event was unfolding and how close the two vehicles
had to be to one another before the ill-intentioned would recognize the
vehicle of her target. It doesn't add up.
One e-mailed version of the rumor tries to supply an answer to that
inconsistency, saying, "She knew it was her boyfriend's car driving
south, because of the unique headlight configuration of his 1962 Corvair
Sedan." The vehicles were traveling at right angles to one another, so
an unusual headlight array on one wouldn't have been visible to the
other. (According to the experts, the headlight array on the 1962
Corvair was typical of the cars of the day; two headlights on each side,
as this photo shows.)
So 17-year-old Laura Welch did cause the death of a friend by running a
stop sign, but to see more in the story than that is to surrender
oneself up to baseless imaginings. Yes, it is always easier to attribute
malice to bad outcomes, but that does not mean malice is an integral
component of tragedy, especially those involving people Fate later
chooses to exalt.
According to George and Laura: Portrait of an American Marriage, Laura
Welch did not find out that the driver of the other vehicle had died at
the scene until later when she and her girlfriend were being treated at
the hospital. And she did not learn his identity until later still, when
her parents arrived and broke the news to her. It shattered her.
She was barely 17 and she had taken the life of a friend. She has since
carried the weight of this, and it changed her, at least according to
those who knew her before and after. Only rarely has she spoken of this
with the press (although she has often been asked), but even on those
occasions her answers have been oblique, almost as if she cannot bear to
think of it, let alone speak of it.
Barbara "there are many sides to a tragedy, never just one" Mikkelson
Last updated: 27 September 2004
The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/laura.asp
I'm still trying to get this goddamned microchip out of my back that
George Bush and the secret service stuck there in 1982 when they
kidnapped and drugged me in the Florida Keys.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/laura.asp
http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/laura.asp
http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/laura.asp
http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/laura.asp
http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/laura.asp
http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/laura.asp
In May 2000, a two-page police report pertaining to a fatal accident
that had taken place near Midland, Texas, in 1963 was made public. It
contained the information that 17-year-old Laura Welch had run a stop
sign, causing the death of the sole occupant of the vehicle hers had
struck. According to that report, the future First Lady had been (drunk)
driving
her Chevrolet sedan on a clear night shortly after 8 p.m. on 6 November
1963 when she entered an intersection without heeding the stop sign and
there collided with the Corvair sedan driven by 17-year-old Michael
Douglas. Also in the car with Laura Welch was a passenger, 17-year-old
(carpet muncher)
Judy Dykes.
How fast Miss Welch might have been driving is open to question. That
part of the police report is illegible, although two biographies of the
First Lady refer to her as having been going 50 mph at the time of the
collision. The speed limit on that portion of road was 55 mph. According
to the police report neither driver had been drinking, but no tests were
performed. No charges were filed as a result of the accident.
News accounts from 1963 reported the young man as having been thrown
from his car and dying of a broken neck; he was pronounced dead on
arrival at Midland Memorial Hospital. According to various biographies
of Mrs. Bush, the boy's father had been travelling in a car immediately
behind his son's and witnessed the whole thing.
The two teen girls were taken to the same hospital and treated for minor
injuries that amounted to bumps and bruises.
Michael Douglas, the young man who was killed, had been a member of
Laura Welch's crowd at high school and her friend. He had been a star
athlete, excelling in track and football, and was looked up to by his
peers not just for his athlete prowess, but for his personality and
intelligence too. By all reports, he was likeable, outgoing, and funny.
He was nominated as the school's most popular boy while a junior, an
honor that almost always went to a senior.
There has always been speculation about the nature of his relationship
with Laura Welch. One rumor asserts the two had never dated, but that
Laura had been romantically interested in him. Another claims he had
been Laura's boyfriend when he died, and another that he had once been
her boyfriend but the couple had subsequently broken up. (The latter
theory is advanced in the 2002 biography of the Bushes, George and
Laura: Portrait of an American Marriage, which states Laura Welch and
Michael Douglas had dated throughout early and mid-1963, but by the fall
of that year Michael was going out with Regan Gammon, one of Miss
Welch's closest friends.)
The accident is difficult to understand it that it took place on a clear
night on dry pavement at a crossroads described as "the middle of
nowhere," where the view was unobstructed and the stop sign that faced
Laura Welch was clearly visible. (The intersection was a two-way, not a
four-way, stop.) Yet looking to only weather and road conditions to
explain what happened is to miss the obvious: there were two teen girls
in the car, girls who were on their way to a party and thus who likely
would have been bubbling over with chatter about who would be there.
Laura Welch, the driver, had turned 17 only two days earlier. She and
her passenger were still of an age when they could all too easily shut
out everything going on around them, even the approach of another car
and the recognition of a stop sign.
There are those who want to believe the future First Lady deliberately
and with malice aforethought murdered her (ex-)boyfriend over some now
forgotten teen tiff and who point to what they view as the suspicious
circumstances of the accident and the subsequent lack of prosecution as
proofs of their supposition. Yet to entertain such a hypothesis is to
believe the young woman would have attempted to kill another by doing
away with herself. (As the driver of what was intended to be a murder
weapon, she would have had no reason to believe she would survive a
collision severe enough to be fatal to her prey — that events turned out
that way doesn't mean that outcome could have been reasonably foreseen.)
Although the theory of "I'll kill you even though I have to kill myself
to do it" might still play in a person sufficiently vengeance-minded
(e.g., a suicide bomber), it is far better discounted in cases where an
innocent life would also be taken (e.g., a passenger in the car). Those
intent upon acts of revenge are generally impelled by a misguided sense
of justice, and there is precious little justice (misguided or
otherwise) in causing the death of innocent parties.
Then there are the circumstances of the crash. It was 8 pm on a November
night in Texas on roads far removed from any town, so it was dark. With
no stop sign facing him, the doomed young man would have had no reason
to slow his vehicle even if he had seen another car approaching the
intersection. He therefore would have been travelling at least 50 mph.
Laura Welch ran the stop sign facing her, so there is reason to assume
she too was going approximately 50 mph, the speed she would have been
doing if she'd had the right of way.
Consider two cars travelling in the dark at right angles to each other,
each going approximately 50 mph. The span of time available in which to
form murderous intent would have amounted to mere seconds, given the
speed at which the event was unfolding and how close the two vehicles
had to be to one another before the ill-intentioned would recognize the
vehicle of her target. It doesn't add up.
One e-mailed version of the rumor tries to supply an answer to that
inconsistency, saying, "She knew it was her boyfriend's car driving
south, because of the unique headlight configuration of his 1962 Corvair
Sedan." The vehicles were traveling at right angles to one another, so
an unusual headlight array on one wouldn't have been visible to the
other. (According to the experts, the headlight array on the 1962
Corvair was typical of the cars of the day; two headlights on each side,
as this photo shows.)
So 17-year-old Laura Welch did cause the death of a friend by running a
stop sign, but to see more in the story than that is to surrender
oneself up to baseless imaginings. Yes, it is always easier to attribute
malice to bad outcomes, but that does not mean malice is an integral
component of tragedy, especially those involving people Fate later
chooses to exalt.
According to George and Laura: Portrait of an American Marriage, Laura
Welch did not find out that the driver of the other vehicle had died at
the scene until later when she and her girlfriend were being treated at
the hospital. And she did not learn his identity until later still, when
her parents arrived and broke the news to her. It shattered her.
She was barely 17 and she had taken the life of a friend. She has since
carried the weight of this, and it changed her, at least according to
those who knew her before and after. Only rarely has she spoken of this
with the press (although she has often been asked), but even on those
occasions her answers have been oblique, almost as if she cannot bear to
think of it, let alone speak of it.
Barbara "there are many sides to a tragedy, never just one" Mikkelson
Last updated: 27 September 2004
The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/laura.asp
I'm still trying to get this goddamned microchip out of my back that
George Bush and the secret service stuck there in 1982 when they
kidnapped and drugged me in the Florida Keys.