I just don't get it. Explain it to me. . .

Apparently the Blade, which initially chastised the Governor for calling for Dann's resignation (calling him "smug" for doing so), now is ... smuggly calling for Dann to resign, but only so they can then say that the bar would be set too low for impeachment.

I don't get it.  Why do people seem to act as if there is a different standard to call for someone's resignation than there is to impeach them?  Here's what I wrote about that nonsense back in 2005 at my old blog in regards to Gov. Taft (HT to LisaRenee @ Glass City Jungle for reminding me):

Impeachment v. Resignation
Several members of the other party have suggested that Taft should step down. The Governor has indicated an unwillingness to do so. One cannot make the case that a public official should resign for misconduct, but if that official refuses, then nothing further should be done. One cannot argue on one hand for resignation but then vote against impeachment. Like resignation, impeachment is a declaration that a public official's misconduct has caused that official to lose their moral authority to act on behalf of the State. That should be the standard in which the Governor should be judged.

To paraphrase for today's scenerio, one cannot declare that a public official has lost the moral authority to stay in office, but then expect that immoral person to do the moral act and resign.  Impeachment exists exactly to deal with the kind of scum Marc Dann is, a person who stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the truth- that he has lost the moral authority to lead or to do his job. 

So, when someone like Marc Dann refuses to do the honorable thing after the dishonorable thing, we're supposed to just throw up our hands and bear it out until the next election?  That's not what the Ohio Constitution says.

And, my God, am I sick of seeing all the handwringing over the Ohio Constitution.  You'd think that someone in the media would realize that the impeachment provisions were left intentionally vague because they WANTED to give the House wide latitude and discretion to decide when to use its impeachment powers instead of a rigid, objective legal standard.

Want to know the difference between Marc Dann and Bill Clinton?  Politics, which is exactly what the Framers intended.  Impeachment is not a legal decision, it's a political one.  That's why it begins in the most political body there is: the Ohio House of Representatives.  Why?  Because if the House abuses its impeachment powers (as the Blade irrationally frets), then the people can vote that legislature out and replace it with more pragmatic legislators who will use their powers more wisely.

In Bill Clinton's case, most people saw it as a politicized civil trial that was over Bill Clinton's conduct before he was President being used by his political enemies to achieve what they could not do at the ballot box.  A review of public polling at the time shows that the public did not support Congress' efforts to impeach Clinton, and that most believed he should have just been left alone.  So what happened?  Public opinion convinced the Senate not to convict, the Republicans majorities in both houses were shaved thin, leading to the Speaker of the House to be overthrown in an internal partisan coup.  Exactly what the Framers intended to be done if the impeachment powers were being abused.

Sometimes people need to realize that the Constitution was left intentionally vague for this reason.  To give political actors latitude to deal with situations unforeseeable by the Framers.

I see in the Blade that Cliff Arnebeck has stuck his neck out to say that the Constitution requires for a commission of a crime.  This puts him in odds with just about every other constitutional scholar in Ohio.  It also puts him squarely at odds with Ohio history.

None of the impeachments pursued in the early 1800s involved an allegation of a crime, including the only one to result in a Senate conviction.

There's no serious debate as to whether the Ohio constitution requires a commission of a crime or not.  There are those who have seriously studied the issue and Ohio's history applying it, and then there are people who simply don't know what they're talking about (or want to pretend that 200 years of Ohio history isn't important.)

And then the biggest coward of them all has to be Speaker Husted who now claims that the House isn't equipped to do an impeachment investigation, so he wants an independent investigation.  What the hell?  So why do we have those hearing rooms at the Statehouse?  Funny, I never heard Speaker Husted say that the House wasn't able to investigate whether new strip club laws were necessary or not.  I seem to recall that the House claimed it had the ability to investigate that issue.

Or school funding.

Coingate.

Or lawsuit abuse to support tort reform.

But when it comes to an issue the House is specifically chartered with investigating in the Constitution, the Speaker claims there's no ability.  Coward.  Speaker Husted has conviced me that he simply cannot handle the weight and magnitude of his office when called upon to do anything more than pass yet another stupid special license plate bill or designating some thing as Ohio's official so-and-so.

Vern Riffe could have handled this.  Of course, if Speaker Riffe were still alive and in power, Marc Dann would have been unwrapping the moving boxes in Youngstown by now.

I just don't get it anymore.  Seriously, what is wrong with these people?