Marc Dann – Our Own Little Slice of Blagojevich
What more can be said about Marc Dann that hasn’t already crossed someone’s lips or illuminated some pixels on a screen or stained black a piece of newsprint?
Well, they can’t call him a douche bag in the newspaper, but I’m sure someone has in the Ohio blogosphere. You gotta love the blogs – we can say how we really feel.
I heard someone on Cap Square utter “fucktard” in reference to Dann. I was going to pull that one out myself tonight to try to say something that hadn’t already been said, but someone said it – I heard ‘em.
Marc Dann, Rod Blagojevich, Elliot Spitzer, Larry Craig — the list goes on and it will never end. There’s something about these men – you never see women screwing up like this – and their arrogance that just leaves one dumbfounded. Blago says he’ll fight and fight and fight some more. Spitzer does the cruddiest of cruddy and drags his wife to the press conference where topic one is his penchant for hookers. Larry Craig says he’s not gay, but did you ever see him do the “He’s a naughty, naughty boy” routine on Meet the Press? That was pretty gay. Dann today said he’s innocent and that IG Tom Charles is on a witch hunt.
Put the media coverage aside and just page through the IG’s report. This wasn’t a “witch hunt” or Charles exacting some revenge for some criticism Dann leveled at him when he was in the State Senate. Witch hunts are inherently bogus, McCarthyistic – a lot of smoke and no fire. What was going on in the AG’s office was a five-alarm public disservice catastrophe.
It’s become obvious that Dann was incompetent. He was a boor and a pig. He wasted a helluva lot of taxpayer money. He bilked his campaign contributors to live a lifestyle that he didn’t earn. There are so many lapses of ethics and good judgement laced throughout the report that you forget all about the sexual harassment of employees by Anthony Gutierrez and Leo Jennings. You forget about the affair with the scheduler. Hundreds of thousands of dollars – perhaps millions – of wasted tax dollars in little over a year overshadows all of that.
Then there’s the campaign cash. Some folks say, that’s just what happens to campaign money. I’ve been around enough fundraising and political campaigns to know that most candidates don’t treat their campaigns as slush funds. Even if there weren’t rules, most people wouldn’t be giving campaign contributions to pad a candidate’s lifestyle. When they pony up they’re either supporting someone they believe in or they are trying to advance their cause. They’re not thinking, “Gee wouldn’t it be great if Marc’s kids get to go see Ludacris next month,” or, “You know, I bet the Danns could really use this money to get away to San Francisco for some quality time together – here’s 50 bucks.”
The Dannettes and all of that probably won’t get anyone indicted. Some of this other stuff might.
