Blago Removed --- After Mounting a (Really) Lame Defense

Impeached Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was removed from office Thursday night after making a last desperate attempt to lower the bar for public service.

The Illinois State Senate voted 59-0 to out the two-term governor from office after it was determined that he had abused his office

The legislature then voted, again unanimously, to permanently bar Blagojevich from ever again holding an elected position in the state.

The votes came after the governor made a dramatic appearance before the Illinois State Senate, in which he attempted to defend himself against charges that he sought to barter off President Barack Obama's Senate seat to the highest bidder.

Far from aiding his cause, Blagojevich sealed his fate with a speech that displayed a fundamental misunderstanding of the standards for impeaching and removing executives from their positions.

What Blagojevich did not "get" is that the impeachment process does not culminate in a criminal trial.

Impeachment is, and always has been, a political response to the abuse of office by an irresponsible or irrational executive.

As such, the baseline standard for removal is not, and never should be, proof of lawbreaking.

Rather, the basic standard ought to be the general acceptance by the legislative branch of government that an executive has abused his position to such an extent that he is no longer capable of garnering the trust (from legislators and the public) that is needed to govern.

It is easier to impeach an executive than it is to convict a common criminal because the standard for behavior by an executive should be higher than that which is expected of a lawbreaker.

That's something Blagojevich got wrong.

"There was never a conversation where I intended to break any law," he said Thursday to the senators who would weigh his fate. "I'm appealing to you and your sense of fairness."

"How can you throw a governor out of office on a criminal complaint and you haven't been able to show or to prove any criminal activity?" Blagojevich asked.

The answer goes back to that baseline standard that should be applied to elected executives -- be they governors or presidents. It cannot be pushed so low as to require evidence of conviction on criminal charges to make legitimate legislative action to terminate an executive's tenure.

Blagojevich did not understand that it is absolutely appropriate to impeach and remove "a devious, cynical, crass and corrupt politician," as Republican Senator Dale Righter described the governor.

Remarkably, considering that he is a former prosecutor, Blagojevich offered no more of a defense than an "everybody-does-it" argument.

The governor told the senators that his scheming to gain benefits in return for the Senate appointment was nothing more than "things all of us in politics do to run campaigns and win elections."

If that is true, what Blagojevich offered was not a defense.

It was an argument for removing a lot more politicians from their abused positions.

But, above all, it was an argument for getting rid of a particular politician who's "defense" made a better case for his impeachment and removal than any argument offered by his critics.

Comments (22)

1. So much of huge importance going on and we get Blagojevich on 5 f#@king channels this afternoon.

   Enough of this clown.

   Here's a brief excerpt of a very interesting interview with ex-CIA operative Robert Baer recently via the fine Inter Press Service News Agency:

   www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45526

   Enjoy.

   Posted by b_kool_66 at 01/29/2009 @ 5:37pm

2. What is the actual standard for impeachment in Illinois? (John Nichols doesn't cite it).

   Posted by urmygyro at 01/29/2009 @ 5:40pm

3. Blagojevich looks a lot like the marionette icon of our time, 'Howdy Doody'.

   He even talks like Howdy.

   He and the wife need to go. He's giving it his best shot, but the guys mental. His main problem is going to be getting a job after he's impeached.

   Maybe the gambling commission. Overseeing the welfare of the crazy people that actually go to casinos is perfect.

   Posted by ficheye at 01/29/2009 @ 6:34pm

4. Thank God it's over can we move on now!!!

   Posted by Caj at 01/29/2009 @ 6:56pm

5. I am still convinced that we are into a massive diversion and that the weasel in the barnyard is Fitzgerald. I"m sort of sad really that the Governor was so easily destroyed. What little I heard and saw was that he really was fighting for the little guy, from Canadian drug imports to showing up at the plant closing recently with the union sit ins. All this media blitz about the Gov. while a man who had just lost his job came home shot his wife and five kids and shot himself and hardly a peep out of the media. Showed up on the scroll and a brief blurb on CNN. Are we going to get to the torture issue and the returning Iraq soldiers family violence and suicides? If we ignore this we will fail the next generation. I was never so proud of my country as when we participated in the Nuremberg trials. I'm having trouble still supporting Blagojevitch, but I still think that the stench of corruption is heavy over the Illinois senate.

   Posted by julien38 at 01/29/2009 @ 7:21pm

6. Posted by julien38 at 01/29/2009 @ 7:21pm

   So the tapes of Rod trying to sell a US Senate seat are "a massive diversion by Patrick Fitzgerald"?!?!?!?

   Posted by Mask at 01/29/2009 @ 9:15pm

7. Hmmm, the only good Undemocrat governor is an impeached one! Question is now how much media attention will be given to him when comes around spreading tales about all the Illinois politicians currently in the public eye?

   Posted by comancheamerican at 01/29/2009 @ 11:27pm

8. Don't worry, boys (HAPP/RIO)...with little influence and almost no power...

   I'm sure you'll be hearing a LOT about "Democratic scandals" from Rush and friends.

   (If mostly because Dems are the ones in charge, ergo statistically more likely to be involved in scandals....and of course, like RIO, they'll ignore the Republican ones!...heheh)

   Posted by Mask at 01/29/2009 @ 11:30pm

9. There is no need to discuss any Republicans that fall short. Any that do are villified for decades by every leftist blogger here at the nation!

   Posted by comancheamerican at 01/29/2009 @ 11:39pm

10. I find myself on his side. How about Senators under indictment still serving, like Stevens, until convicted? He wasn't convicted of anything, and he could not call any of Fitzgerald's witnesses. So how could he defend himself? Maybe he was a lousy governor and the state legislature all hated him, but how about just voting him out in the next election? Talking about doing stuff is not a crime. You gotta do it. So far they haven't proven it. "Pay to play" is alive and well in AMerica and it goes on everywhere. I think the media had a lot of fun laughing at him everday for a month, after they couldn't hang anything on Obama. But really, I think he is being made a scapegoat for the American political system. Like by getting rid of him, we become "clean."

    Posted by jonnirae at 01/30/2009 @ 12:00am

11. What was really lame was the sorry show trial put on by the Illinois legislature. Zhadanov (Katrina, that reference was for you) would be proud. I mean, did they really charge him with importing prescription drugs from Canada? I think half of all Democratic politicians have run on that promise the past ten years. This isn't a defense of Blago, but it is a sad day for due process and the rule of law in this country. The Democratic party just summarily executed one of their own on trumped up charges because he had become a threat to the cultural hegemony established by Obama. This is almost as sad as anything pulled off by the Bush administration.

    Posted by links18 at 01/30/2009 @ 12:08am

12. Blagojevich reminds me of a characature of Steve Carell's portrayal of David Scott in the office. Maybe Blagojevich's next job can be at Dunderhead and Miffed.

    Posted by lltrix at 01/30/2009 @ 01:10am

13. I have to add that Blagojevich is very entertaining but I won't miss him being seen on television 24/7. Can we move on now?

    Posted by lltrix at 01/30/2009 @ 01:12am

14. I couldn't figure out the fascination with this buffoon. O.K., it's a newsworthy story, but come on!

    All of those tv shows gave him a forum to spout whatever drivel he wanted to, while he refused to enter testimoney into the record. It's not the tv stations fault, for some reason people like this spectacle.

    Posted by koroviev at 01/30/2009 @ 02:41am

15. I'm sorry to see this `show' end so soon.....it should at least last a full season.

    Posted by HAPPYLonghorn at 01/29/2009 @ 11:24pm

    Happy, it may not be over yet. Now that Blago is out of office, stay tuned to see what bombs he starts to throw. I'm sure hes got dirt on some other Illinois politicians.

    Posted by fram at 01/30/2009 @ 05:28am

16. The newsworthiness of the Blagojevich story has just been proven.

    The man was just IMPEACHED and REMOVED FROM OFFICE. How often does THAT happen?

    I agree with Nichols's suggestion that it doesn't happen often enough.

    Of course, if we elected both executives and legislators more by more democratic and accurate means (Instant-Runoff Voting!), our elections would have better results, which might make impeachment either less often necessary or more likely to happen, due to the higher frequency of legislators in office having actual courage.

    I believe there is also generally an imbalance of power between executives and legislatures, in favor of the executives. This should be corrected not only by more frequent impeachment, but also by creating unicameral legislatures that are not checked and balanced against themselves. The Legislative Branch is the ONLY branch in our country's government that is checked and balanced against itself. This makes it impossible for us to revise or remove old laws as quickly as we need to do in changing times. I believe this is what encourages "creative" interpretation of the law by executives.

    This wouldn't be so bad if ALL executives were capable populists like Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But certainly, not every president is FDR. More to the point, I think the last eight years of Cheney and Bush have aptly demonstrated what a disaster it is when a "creative" Executive Branch has neither appreciation of nor understanding for the spirit of our noblest laws, from the Bill of Rights to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These two authoritarians nearly dragged us all back to the the religious wars and the witch trials of the Seventeenth Century -- yet our Congress failed to impeach them.

    Posted by JakobFabian at 01/30/2009 @ 07:50am

17. Posted by julien38 at 01/29/2009 @ 7:21pm

    Posted by jonnirae at 01/30/2009 @ 12:00am

    For those of you who feel sorry for Blago, his real crime was getting caught.

    Politics is like sausage: if you like it, it best you not watch it being made.

    Politician are elected to help their supporters and what gets a politician more power is good for his supporters.

    But blago got careless and got cuaght being a little too honest about increasing that power and no other politician can risk associating with such a careless person so he had to go.

    Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 01/30/2009 @ 08:15am

18. What was really lame was the sorry show trial put on by the Illinois legislature.

    Posted by links18 at 01/30/2009 @ 12:08am

    Read this article. I think you will find it fascinating:

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123318805587026591.html

    It's about the Gietner "exception".

    Increasingly, political allys are becoming expendable pawns for PR purposes.

    "In March, Obama foreign policy adviser Samantha Power was quoted by a newspaper in nearby Scotland calling Hillary Clinton a "monster." The Obama campaign immediately threw her out the window. Cowed and numbed, no one in politics raised an objecting peep at the absurd disproportion."

    "More serious was the elimination of Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank. After a media show trial that lasted several weeks, Mr. Wolfowitz lost his job running the Bank because apparatchiks inside concocted an ethics violation."

    We're turning into Russia.

    Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 01/30/2009 @ 08:21am

19. Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 01/30/2009 @ 08:21am

    Wow, the slip into right-wing despair just continues, eh, Darin?

    First LVLIB with his "Maybe it will be good to see this country fall..."...

    now you with "We're turning into Russia"?!?!??

    Is it just that you can't even IMAGINE the country surviving without Republicans in charge?....heheh

    Posted by Mask at 01/30/2009 @ 08:58am

20. I appreciate this piece. For reasons I don't understand, people keep talking about the presumption of innocence. The presumption that you are innocent until proven guilty applies only in a court of law in a criminal prosecution. It does not apply in an impeachment proceeding - that is not a criminal case. Think about it. If the presumption of innocence attached everywhere, as some seem to think, the police couldn't arrest anyone because everyone would be presumed to be innocent. I think Blago knows the difference, but he didn't have anything else to come up with. He didn't dare testify on his own behalf because (1) he would have to submit to cross-examination and (2) it could be used against him in federal court. Since his closing argument was filled with irrelevancies and protestations of innocence he got away fairly clean.

    Posted by jsens at 01/30/2009 @ 12:42pm

21. Wow! I hit that ignore button on Troll and he is gone. This is great! I like reading Mask, although he is a bit snarky, but have to skip the references to Troll. It's like the clouds have parted and the sun is shining!

    Whose next? I want to be careful not to ignore commentors who thoughtfully disagree with me or this whole comment thing would be boring. Yes, Troll, the key word was "thoughtfully". Try it some day, it's the mushy stuff between your ears. Go ahead, it only aches a little at first. Oh, then sit down for a few minutes until your vision clears.

    Posted by Cannonball at 01/30/2009 @ 12:52pm

22. We're turning into Russia.

    Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 01/30/2009 @ 08:21am

    at least you'll have some oil.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 01/30/2009 @ 1:14pm