Do you feel Governor Blagojevich (IL-D) should be impeached for his alleged attempt to "sell" P.E. Obama's senate seat?

I think he should be impeached if he’s proven to have attempted to sell the seat. Not simply alleged to have. Though from what I’ve seen so far it’s pretty obvious that he did in fact try to sell it. Just when you think politics can’t get more disgusting and revolting, it does.

I wish he would just have one brief moment of clarity and resign. But, that probably won’t happen, so yes. He needs to be impeached, Or deemed incapable of leading. Bring on Pat Quinn.

@dynamicduo According to what is being discussed now, an impeachment would not have anything to do w/ his guilt or innocence.

Impeachment is being considered under the notion that the mere fact that he has been charged is too distracting for him to be able to perform his duties.

Impeach doesn’t mean to put out of office. It means to accuse of misconduct in office. The trial follows, and that’s where the proving takes place. It sounds as if there were plenty to charge this public official with. I certainly think impeachment is indicated, for a long list of things and not just the latest affront to the office and the people he is sworn to serve.

First he should be stripped of his powers, which is what the Illinois AG is attempting to do. Because he has demonstrated that he is the kind of guy who will appoint the wrong person to fill the US Senate seat if he doesn’t get what he wants. I wouldn’t be surprised if right now the whole reason he’s refusing to resign is because he is hoping to leverage the power of that appointment in order to get something (like immunity from criminal prosecution). That power should be stripped from him by the quickest means possible under the laws of Illinois and the United States.

And yes, then if he still refuses to resign, in spite of having been stripped of his powers, he should be impeached, i.e. accused of wrongdoing, and he should essentially be impeached on the basis of his inability to lead. Clearly a governor who has been stripped of his powers would have no ability to lead, and therefore the impeachment would lead to a trial in the Senate wherein he could simply be found guilty of being unable to lead and could therefore be removed from office, without having to go through the entire process of trying to establish the same guilt that will be established by the Federal prosecutors.

Then the Federal prosecuters should be able to try him on corruption charges and put him in a cell next door to his predecessor.

Also, he needs to be bitch-slapped.

Apologies for the misunderstanding, we don’t have a lot of impeachments here in Canada (although that word does come up a lot when Bush comes around).

In light of the true definition, I do think that he should be impeached. At the very least he should have the power of appointing the senate seat removed. But it would be very hard to do that while also believing that he wouldn’t abuse the other powers.

He really does need a bitch-slap though. How much balls do you need to try and go up against Obama, playing with the same old dirty politics handbook when you know very well that Obama not only doesn’t play with that book, but has lambasted it consistently throughout his campaign.

Yes, I think he should be impeached. However, I don’t live in Illinois.

This guy’s balls are bigger than his brain. And I have to wonder this. Part of what was recorded was that he was seeking a better paying job for himself and his wife due to “financial pressures.” So, I looked it up, by doing a search on Illinois Governor salary. The first hit was a link from May 15, 2007 on stateline.org, which compiled ALL governor’s salaries. It ranked Blagojevich at 7th highest paid, except that the governors of California and New Jersey don’t take their salaries, so he’s the 5th highest paid governor in the US. It put his salary at $155,600, AND it said that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was due for a raise in 2008, but had indicated that he would TURN IT DOWN.

Let’s see how that played out. Well, I found this quote in a news story a few hits down,

In court papers, the FBI said Blagojevich expressed frustration at being “stuck” as governor. “I want to make money,” the governor, whose salary is $177,412, was quoted as saying in one conversation.

Hmmmmm, well let’s see. That would actually per the Stateline link, put him as the 3rd highest paid governor in the U.S., second if you take into account that Schwarzenegger isn’t drawing a salary! And so much for his “fight” against getting a raise.

I also found that his wife is an investment banker and former owner of a real estate company (she earned $700k in commissions between her husband’s election and when she sold the company). And their combined 2007 income (when he would have been making a paltry $155,600) was $214,580, so one might expect to say that right now their combined salaries are about $236,392 give or take a few grand perhaps.

So I have to speculate that one’s balls would not only have to be the size of cantaloupes, but would have to be made out of titanium for one to bitch about “being stuck” at such a salary, “not making enough money” and having “financial pressures”.

I’ll volunteer to do the bitch-slapping!

Great research, @DalePetrie. We won’t ask how this joker got elected (that question would probably tar a lot of elected officials, not that they wouldn’t deserve it), but there seems to be no justification for letting him continue in office as long as the law provides a means of removal. Being stupid or greedy or appallingly self-serving is not wrongdoing in itself, nor is inability to lead, but where those are found, wrongdoing easily follows.

Gray Davis (former govenor of CA) did a lot less, and looked what happened. I’ll never understand politics.

My understanding of how he got elected, get this, was that when the former Governor, George Ryan I believe was his name, was convicted of EXACTLY the same thing, he ran on a platform of honesty and cleaning up corruption, and restoring some integrity and dignity to the office.

And regarding being stupid and greedy and appallingly self serving not being wrongdoing in and of itself, very true, I’d venture a guess that the VAST majority of ALL politicians at the state level and above wield the power of their elected offices to advance their own agenda (indeed, I’d say the vast majority of HUMANITY uses whatever influence it has to leverage a better personal outcome), but the main difference between status quo polical jackassery and what Blagojevich did comes in when he says (on tape) things like the following quotes I obtained from the Chicago Tribune:

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On Nov. 3, Blagojevich told Adviser A: “I’m going to keep this Senate option for me a real possibility, you know, and therefore I can drive a hard bargain. You hear what I’m saying. And if I don’t get what I want and I’m not satisfied with it, then I’ll just take the Senate seat myself.” Blagojevich described the Senate seat as “a (expletive) valuable thing, you just don’t give it away for nothing.”

On Nov. 5, while discussing his authority to name Obama’s replacement, Blagojevich said Obama could use his influence to name the governor to a lucrative spot with a private foundation. Blagojevich told Adviser A: “I’ve got this thing and it’s (expletive) golden, and, uh, uh, I’m just not giving it up for (expletive) nothing. I’m not gonna do it. And, and I can always use it. I can parachute me there.”

On Nov. 12, Blagojevich told Harris his decision about the open Senate seat would be based on three criteria in the following order of importance: ”(O)ur legal situation, our personal situation, my political situation. This decision, like every other one, needs to be based upon that. Legal. Personal. Political.”

After an Oct. 6 meeting, Blagojevich told Individual A he was going to announce a $1.8 billion tollway project and planned to hit up a highway contractor for a $500,000 political contribution. “I could have made a larger announcement but wanted to see how they perform by the end of the year. If they don’t perform, (expletive) ’em.”

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Essentially the difference between rewarding people for loyalty by giving them good appointments, supporting their bills, etc. and outright putting up a senate seat to the highest bidder, withholding payments unless you get a kickback, and admitting to it all on tape is pretty vast. I don’t like either situation, but unless we can do something at the Federal level to remove the influence of money from politics altogether, this kind of thing will keep happening, 99 times out of 100 it will be done smartly and discretely enough that no one will think there was any wrong doing, and that one time out of 100 you will end up with some egotistical jerkwad who doesn’t know the first thing about discretion or subtlety, and he will be made an example of.

And yes, Gray Davis, I never really understood what it was that made Schwarzennegger more palatable than Davis, particularly when so many of California’s core values seem so out of line with Arnold’s personal politics. But whatever, I’m from Minnesota, so who am I to talk about celebrities running for office?

They should take this corrupt SOB out of office, direct to jail, no passing go, no $200. Screw the prick.

@Dale, I think it was largely the novelty of it, the idea of having a Governator, that made people vote for Arnold impulsively and just for the fun of it. (I did not, but damned if I didn’t feel the same urge.) Gray Davis was just so…gray. (And he was recalled, not impeached, though not for being gray.)

Just like the presidential election, I think most people had a TV-based notion that it was essentially the Election Bowl and the point was for your team to win, and then it would be over—rather than that the outcome was the beginning.

Let up on Arnie. I was against the recall because I felt Gray’s biggest challenge was brought about by Enron etal and well he was pretty boring. When Arnie came in he made the usual Republican noises and repealed a small auto fee that cut slightly into some police, fire and park services.

Lately however when we can’t get a state budget agreement and we may run out of money for current expenses, he is beginning to sound like a centrist Democrat. I chalk it up to the fact that there is an honest man under that supersized ego. Of course he didn’t come into the office with a lot of political debt or knowledge but now he is learning.

(He’s also got a Democrat at home to help him think about things.)

Of course he should go through a fair Impeachment trial.