Calling me a liar is pretty strong stuff. I must say that you have got to be the most binary thinking person I have ever met.

Lemme spell it out for you:

What is Dann’s crime? How is asking that question defending him? Isn’t it a fair question? I have yet to hear it articulated properly. Shouldn’t you make damn sure what the charge is before you try to impeach? That isn’t defending Dann, it’s saying that you’re putting your cart before your horse. It’s all well to yell and scream about how much the AG sucks, but remember that you are trying to take down the Attorney General of the State of Ohio. Get your damn facts straight, and you’d better be damned sure that they stick. Being a sexist womanizing pig that hires cronies isn’t exactly a barn burner of a case when talking about an American politician. Make sure that you have a clear shot because it isn’t like you are pushing out some Strickland appointment. This is a powerful, independent position. Its going to take a little more than hubrist laced will to power to remove the man. I’m all for impeachment AFTER an investigation IF they find criminal wrong doing.

I don’t want a resignation, I want a perp walk. How is that defending Dann? The ODP jumped the gun on demanding impeachment and by doing so they make a weaker case for why he should be removed from office.

The ODP has a conflict in interest in this case. I don’t want to hear from them because of that. No deals, no mass press conferences. Facilitate the investigation and let it take its course. Strickland has made the investigation possible, for which I applaud. The big question is how much damage has been done to the investigation because of the drama?

By saying that Strickland over played his had, that is a critique, not an “attack.” Because of it we have the current drama.

As for a petition, I think that Dann has more than made the case for removal by such a means.

This is all well moot at this point.

Embattled and scandal-ridden Ohio Attorney General Marc “Dannimal House” Dann will give a statement at noo……

“Modern, just because I am critical of how this is being handled doesn’t mean that I am defending Dann.”

Really? a href=”http://www.ohiodailyblog.com/content/confession-absolution”>Didn’t you write this?
“As of yet nobody has been able to explain exactly what Marc Dann’s crime was besides pissing off Ted Strickland.”

And then there was your glowing reflection of meeting Marc Dann.

Yeah, you haven’t been defending Marc Dann at all.

You criticize Strickland and the Democrats for a rush to judgment in calling for impeachment when you have said you’d support a recall effort. Aren’t people making a judgment in signing a petition to recall a government official? Aren’t they making the same judgment as say someone introducing articles of impeachment.

There’s no such thing as a non-politicized impeachment. Impeachment, by its very nature, is a politicized process.

Again, their controlling the process because the Republicans wanted to politicize Dann by keeping him on political life support. The only reason there is an independent investigation by the IG today is because Strickland forced the General Assembly to do their role.

You aren’t defending Dann yet you write glowing posts about how its absurd to say he rode Strickland’s coattails (even though he relied on money Strickland raised and Strickland had nearly half a million more votes than Dann. I made this comment over at ODB, but it mysteriously disappeared with no process.)

You’re spinning like a wheel, but you can’t escape what you’ve already said. Today the Governor is letting the IG do his job. It’s supposedly what you wanted. So why are you still complaining unless you just want to criticize the Governor just for the sake of doing it?

You think the Governor made a rush to judgment, but have called on over 160,000 voters to sign a petition to follow suit. You want an independent investigation that the Republicans will find credible, but chastise the Governor for being responsible for making sure it happens.

You aren’t defending Dann except that you’ve written that he hasn’t done anything wrong to merit his removal and have yet to write that you believe he should be removed from office either voluntarily or involuntarily.

You’re right. I’ll cop to that to some extent. I did like how it rang.

I do think that closure and a rush to judgment avoids a full examination of the problem. This is too serious for it to be played out politically.

> Name one thing Ted Strickland has done to stop or interfere with there being an independent investigation!

Calling for impeachment at the same time as an independent investigation unnecessarily interferes with the investigation by politicizing it. (See Iran Contra) The Governor is judging before investigating while being neither judge nor investigator. Meaningless drama such as stripping Dann’s ODP endorsement and affiliation is an insult to the citizen’s intelligence. Pure CYA, and I’m sorry but when a system under my watch completely fails I have ZERO tolerance for anyone trying to cover their asses.

The structure is clear. This is a problem between the AG and the Ohio legislature. The last people who should be controlling the agenda are the people who caused this mess in the first place. (It was obvious to me that Dann was traif) They created the problem, but it’s not their job to fix it. As the Rock would say, know your role.

My critique of the governor is mainly tactical. I think that he overextended himself. The fact that they are now retreating in their statements demonstrates this. His nature is to try to control things. I’d recommend he read Zen and the Art of Archery.

I would much rather let Dann hang himself than to have him holed up in the AGs office because the ODP wants to control how this plays out.

Modern, just because I am critical of how this is being handled doesn’t mean that I am defending Dann. I can’t look into the hearts of Chris Redfern or Governor Strickland. I can only point out that they have a conflict of interest which precludes them from rightly trying to control the process. This is a complete system failure. You can’t press conference away something like this. Sometimes you just have to let the system work.

As for Redfern’s statements, I missed them. I don’t think that he’s going out of his way to publiclly take responsibility.

My God, he signed the IG legislation a mere two hours after it passed the Senate! Was that too long of a time for you?

Dann has, very likely already perjured himself, or at best given highly deceptive and unbelieveable answers.

I think Redfern has acknowledged the wrongfulness of supporting Dann last weekend. It sounds like to me you’re real grind is that you want to relive the entire primary.

Strickland said he wanted an independent investigation and Dann to be impeached if he refused to resign. You say there should be an independent investigation, too, but criticize the Governor for “interfering” with it as he signs the legislation to make it happen. Legislation that would not have been introduced but for his and the other Democrats call for impeachment.

You’ve expressed no problem with the injustice of Dann would resign immediately, but have critized the Governor for the very process called for in the Constitution and with his call and support for an independent investigation. This, you’ve called, an affront to process.

The more and more you actually talk the more apparent is that, objectively, you don’t have any legitimate complaint at all. You’ve just got an ax to grind with the Governor and the ODP and want to use this opportunity to fight old battles.

If it weren’t for Strickland, the Republicans and Dann were happy not to let anything of consequence really happen. Strickland forced their hand and forced them to make their actions match their rhetoric.

There’s absolutely nothing “unjust” about what the Governor has done in regards to Marc Dann. You’ve got your investigation, thanks to the Governor who supported the very thing you’ve criticized him falsely for opposing.

The guy screwed up. Kick him out and move on.

1. Time is relative.

2. I don’t support giving up on an external investigation or any other way in which the full brunt of the damage, and crime if it’s there, plays out, BUT I don’t see why that can’t go forward anyway. ANd I don’t see why Dann has to sit in office for that to occur – isn’t that one reason to be glad that the resignation deal didn’t go forward as Dann wanted it?

3. How punitive are WE being? Dann needs to be held responsible for the wrongs and the consequences – but at what point are we just putting him the public square because WE want to, not because it advances anything else? We have a state full of people who need a functioning AG.

4. Which brings me to this point: We HAVE TO find a way to have “justice” as you say without making Ohioans – that would be us, the voters who have been duped – suffer more. I do not see anyway in which “justice” REQUIRES that we suffer through Dann being in office until…whenever.

5. Last thing – I would really like you to say more about your assertions that the ODP is controlling this thing. WE are the ODP, for better or worse – that’s why we want them to take a stand, no? But the legislature is controlled by the GOP.

What are concerned about – I trust you, so I am sure that I am missing something. What is it?

This scandal is too serious an issue to simply be managed by the ODP.

Personally, I want this whole thing over.

Another long, drawn-out investigation just gives the GOP more crap for their negative ads in November.

For the good of the party- and for the people of Ohio- Dann should have resigned a long time ago.