There’s an additional factor to consider. Historically, impeachment was used by Parliament as a way to curb the abuses of the king’s appointed officials. The entire idea was that abuses of power should be curbed by a body not accountable to the king, but also one that is not hamstrung in its ability to curb abuse by the niceties of criminal law. In this case, we have a public official who is clearly ready to abuse his power in a very vile manner — if the tapes are accurate and not wildly out of context, Blagojevich was ready to sell the office of US Senator. The legislature has the duty, I would argue, to step in and stop this abuse of power from happening. That means, as Archpundit has argued in several posts, that they must put speed above all. Every moment they delay, they risk the Governor abusing his appointment power. Blagojevich will get all the due process to which he is entitled during the criminal trial. But we the people need protection now, even if that means that Blagojevich loses his job. Impeach him, and do it now.
Look, he’s trying to sell the damn state off piece by piece for himself. Allowing this to drag out only gives him more chances. Trying to deal with this because of some precedent it might start ignores that the reason we need to do it is because this assclown has broken all precedents of corruption. In wiretaps that existed for one and one-half month he has been caught trying to sell just about anything the State of Illinois can offer anyone.