(Continued...)

9. Representative Patrick Kennedy (D-RI)
This May, the tow-headed son of the ruddy senior senator from Massachusetts plowed his car into a barrier—and himself into infamy—while under the spell of an Ambien-fueled hallucination. He then attempted to convince Capitol police he was late for a floor vote at 3 o'clock in the morning. When the story broke, Kennedy played the recovery card, announcing that he suffered from depression and addiction—to sleep aids and painkillers—and would seek treatment at the Mayo Clinic. Twenty-four hours later the man who had barreled down D.C.'s power boulevards in a runaway Mustang convertible (with the lights off) presented himself as a role model: "I hope my openness today and in the past, and my acknowledgment that I need help, will give others the courage to get help, if they need it."

In 1988, during his maiden campaign for Rhode Island's state legislature, Kennedy was stumped when radio callers asked him for the location of his campaign headquarters. And once elected, he brandished his signature lucidity on the House floor, where he lamented middle-class America's inability to "make mends meet."

Despite a cameo appearance in the Palm Beach date-rape allegation that landed his cousin William in the tabloids, Kennedy handily won a House seat in 1994. So he had a few years to warm up for the Lewinsky hearings, which he likened to "pulling a fire alarm in a crowded room." He was ably prepared to comment, having developed a close familiarity with the Constitution: "I myself have educated myself about the severity of the Articles of Impeachment, and I want to share with my colleagues and the American people some of the thoughts that I have learned."