{"id":3867,"date":"2011-03-07T05:04:36","date_gmt":"2011-03-07T10:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=3867"},"modified":"2011-03-07T12:07:38","modified_gmt":"2011-03-07T17:07:38","slug":"morning-read-former-north-country-congressman-sweeney-opens-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2011\/03\/07\/morning-read-former-north-country-congressman-sweeney-opens-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Morning Read:  Former North Country congressman Sweeney opens up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Remember back in 2000 when Republicans shook their fists in Florida, opposing a recount of presidential ballots.\u00a0 John Sweeney was there.<\/p>\n<p>George W. Bush would later dub John Sweeney &#8212; who represented a big swath of the North Country &#8212; &#8220;Congressman Kick-Ass.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But Sweeney&#8217;s world began to unravel publicly shortly before he lost his 20th district seat to Kirsten Gillibrand in 2006, and for the first time he&#8217;s talking about the directions his life has taken since.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.timesunion.com\/local\/article\/Sweeney-talks-of-loss-healing-1044313.php\">Here&#8217;s what he told the Albany Times-Union.<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Losing a seat in Congress wasn&#8217;t my biggest loss,&#8221; the four-term  representative of the 20th District, first elected in 1998, said Friday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was the loss of myself and the loss of everything that went with  it, the harm and hurt I created for people around me who I love and love  me. At the end of the day, in a very ironic way, it&#8217;s what saved me,&#8221;  he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You decide to live or die. What made me want to live was  my\u00a0kids.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.timesunion.com\/local\/article\/Sweeney-talks-of-loss-healing-1044313.php\">In their profile, the Times-Union<\/a> asks Sweeney &#8212; still only 55 years old &#8212; about his alcoholism, his time behind bars on DUI charges, and his work now for a Catholic social service agency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Remember back in 2000 when Republicans shook their fists in Florida, opposing a recount of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[20],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3867"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3867"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3868,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3867\/revisions\/3868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}