US Features
Troubled Kennedy battles to save political career
By Tony Czuczka
May 6, 2006, 19:00 GMT

Washington - By admitting he needs treatment for depression and medicine addiction, lawmaker Patrick Kennedy has touched off the latest painful episode in his famous family\'s troubled history.

A member of the US House of Representatives and nephew of assassinated president John F Kennedy, the 38-year-old politician came clean after a bizarre early-morning car crash near the Capitol in Washington.

After a day and a half of speculation, he revealed Friday he was going for rehabilitation at the famed Mayo Clinic to battle addiction to prescription drugs and depression, a disease he has fought \'since I was a young man.\'

Kennedy, the youngest child of longtime US senator Edward Kennedy, quickly faced questions about his political future. But he vowed to conquer his demons, reportedly saying, \'I need to stay in the fight.\'

His honesty could work in favour of Kennedy, who represents a solidly Democratic Party district in the Atlantic state of Rhode Island and has publicly aired his depression and drug use before.

\'I don\'t think he\'s the only Congressman who has issues,\' Pam Hunt, a woman in his Rhode Island district, told Cable News Network (CNN).

Edward Kennedy said he was proud of his son for his openness and decision to seek treatment.

But Thursday\'s car crash has come under intense scrutiny in the media because Kennedy was not tested for alcohol.

A police union claims he got preferential treatment, something Kennedy says he did not ask for. The Boston Herald reported Friday that a waitress in a nearby bar said the lawmaker had been \'drinking a little bit.\'

Kennedy says he did not have alcohol, but instead was disoriented by a medicine mix he had taken to combat gastroenteritis and sleeplessness.

\'I simply do not remember getting out of bed, being pulled over by the police or being cited for three driving infractions,\' he told a news conference. \'But I do know enough that I know that I need help.\'

Police say they noticed Kennedy driving with the lights off at about 3 a.m. Thursday, heading straight toward an oncoming police car that swerved and then gave chase.

He continued in his 1997 Ford Mustang convertible until hitting a security barrier at a congressional office building. The congressman\'s eyes were red and his balance was unsure when he got out, according to a police report released Friday.

Mindful of his own troubles, Kennedy has championed mental-health causes since being elected to the House in 1994.

Organizations involved in the field, such as the Washington-based Society for Neuroscience, have praised him for pushing for public funding for research into mental illness and the brain.

In a House speech in March, he called for victims of mental illness to be recognized as suffering just as much as people with physical ailments.

\'It is not a sign of a charter defect if they are depressed, if they are suffering from mental illness,\' he said.

Kennedy has faced other trouble. He allegedly damaged a rented yacht in 2000 and was accused of shoving an airport security guard the same year. Both incidents reportedly were settled out of court.

In 1969, his father was at the centre of a notorious late-night car crash that killed his passenger. The senator drove his car off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts, drowning young campaign worker Mary Jo Kopechne.

The elder Kennedy left the scene and reported the accident to police only the next morning. The incident has dogged him ever since and became a barrier to his presidential hopes.

Last year, Patrick Kennedy and his brother and sister took legal custody of their mother, who has battled alcoholism, the Los Angeles Times reported.