Jackass performer Ryan Dunn was stinkin' drunk and driving around 130 MPH when he totalled his car, himself and his passenger, Zachary Hartwell.
So then Roger Ebert tweets, "Friends don't let jackasses drink and drive" and a lot of people get upset at him.
Insensitive? Maybe. But on a scale of 1 to 10, with "1" representing minor rudeness and "10" denoting total assholerly, I have a hard time seeing Ebert's comment as much above a 2. And if he'd waited two days to tweet it, it wouldn't even have qualified as a "1."
On the other hand, driving on a public road at 130 MPH is at least a 10, more likely a 12 or 13.
That's if you're sober. Driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.196 — more than double the legal limit — is at least a 15. Add them up and you get around a 27…on a scale of 1 to 10.
Anyway, I look at this and have trouble seeing Ebert as the bad guy, especially since he was basically right. He may have been a little early with it but he was basically right. Apart from the timing, the only way he could have been more correct is if he acknowledged that sometimes, friends try to stop friends from drinking 'n' driving and they can't. But that wasn't the advertising line he was referencing.