Will there be a "doctor shopping" investigation for Patrick Kennedy? Don't count on it.

We've seen plenty of high profile investigations for the sake of investigating a high profile subject. Most recently, Rush Limbaugh reached a deal with Palm Beach prosecutors over "doctor shopping" charges. Andrew McCarthy of NRO, someone whose articles I've read for quite a while and who seems wholly trustworthy to me, opined that the charges against Rush were totally baseless. Nevertheless, Rush's brush with the law is over for now.

Enter Patrick Kennedy. He crashes his car at 3:00 a.m. outside the U.S. Capitol, possibly gets preferential treatment from the cops by not having to take a field sobriety test even though he shows signs of intoxication, and then admits to a prescription pain killer addiction. How did he develop this addiction? From legitimate initial needs, like Rush? None of the above-linked articles says.

Regardless, I'm willing to go out on a limb here and predict that there will be no doctor shopping investigation, no subpoenas for Patrick Kennedy's private medical records, and the media (and his dad, Ted Kennedy) will praise Patrick Kennedy for taking responsibility for his problem - just like they all did when Rush announced his addiction to pain killers, right? BWahahahahah!

I will go even more out on a limb and predict that the loony left blogosphere will dedicate thousands of stupid posts explaining the differences between the two cases and will uniformly conclude that Rush truly is a criminal while Patrick Kennedy is a model citizen.