If you want to help Marc Dann, shut up!

Apparently, Marc Dann's father-in-law decided yesterday to come out and defend Marc Dann.  I think he would have been better off had he not.  This seriously got my blood to boil...

From the Columbus Dispatch:

Dann's father-in-law, Bentley Lenhoff, told Youngstown radio host Rob Mangino that Dann does not fear an impeachment process. Lenhoff, a keynote speaker at Dann's 2007 inauguration, said all of the attorney general's dirty laundry came out in an investigative report last week detailing sexual harassment, cover-ups and other questionable behavior that led to two firings and resignations of two Dann staffers.

"Any impeachment process would be nothing but a vindication of Marc Dann," Lenhoff said. "I'm serious."

And then from the Dayton Daily News:

"He plans to face impeachment because he doesn't think he has done anything impeachable," Bentley Lenhoff, Dann's father-in-law, said Tuesday, May 6 ". . .  This has been nothing but a rush to judgment."

Lenhoff said the bulldog tendencies of his son-in-law should not be underestimated. He said Dann is a victim of half-baked lies and innuendo that have been swallowed whole by the media.

Vindicated?!?  Marc Dann will be vindicated?!?  I can imagine a number of scenerios for Dann, but vindication isn't even on the radar screen.  How could anyone read the Espy report, which was as about as much of a stacked deck for Dann as he's going to get, and then predict that future investigations are going to vindicate Dann.

Second, name one half-baked lie or inneuendo in this whole incident other than the ones from Marc Dann's mouth.  Just one.  And then explain to me why we should support Dann for firing three people over these half-baked lies and innuendo.  What does that say about his character?

We have endured the steady stream of incompetence and disappointment from the personal hands of Marc Dann since the moment he was sworn into office.  Has the rest of his office done good work?  Sure.  But that's been in spite of Marc Dann, not because of it.  I'm not going to applaud Marc Dann because he has some employees who showed up for work rather than trying to dip their pens in the company ink well at the workplace like Dann and Guiterrez, and potentionally even Jennings did.

Rush to judgment?  Did the Governor come out and say resign or be impeached?  No, he listened to Dann's press conference, read the Espy report, and reviewed the transcripts.  A "rush to judgment" is making a decision on someone without the evidence.  The body of evidence in this matter is pretty comprehensive and compelling.  Marc Dann ignored his own office's employment policies, encouraged others as well, to hire unqualified employees with criminal backgrounds who then became prey for sexual solicitation at the workplace by Dann's other unqualified employees with questionable backgrounds.  Dann admitted that he had some knowledge of the allegations against Gutierrez for some time in his interview.  He did nothing.  Ed Simpson did nothing.  The only thing Dann and Co. did then is what he is trying to do now damage control.  Let's not forget that evidence was destroyed, a witness was asked to lie, and Marc Dann, to put it charitably, was less than forthcoming in his interviews, even after being given the opportunity to revise his earlier testimony.

Unless Marc Dann has something in his back pocket that is going to completely discredit the finding of the Espy-Pfeiffer Report, I don't think vindication is looking for Marc Dann's address right now.