People sometimes can let you down

Listen to the message, but keep in mind that people sometimes let you down.

That’s sage advice that somebody once told us and it should be repeated to all the people, especially young ones, who listened to Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann’s speeches.

Dann was the Trumbull County Educational Service Center’s keynote speaker for its annual Civic Day luncheon. He spoke to approximately 70 high school students. No doubt, Dann gave many speeches to many civic and student groups since becoming Ohio’s attorney general in January of 2007.

Trumbull educators who chose Dann as the role model for their students had no way of knowing that two months later the attorney general would be caught in a sex scandal and potentially the subject of Ohio’s first impeachment since the early 1800s. Last week, two of Dann’s closest aides were fired — one for violating the state’s sexual harassment policy and the other for trying to persuade an employee to lie under oath. Another Dann associate was forced to resign for failing to act on the sexual harassment charges and other office shenanigans.

It gets even worse when considering his role-model status. During the sexual harassment investigation it became clear that Dann ran this sacred state office like a frat house, and that he and his top staffers handled work like Ferris Bueller handled school.

Ironically, in March Dann told the Civic Day students, ‘‘Things don’t always work out the way you originally planned them to work out.’’

Certainly not for Dann, or for the educators who unwittingly told their students to follow Dann’s example.

Dann told the students he hoped the day would spark an interest in public service, and expressed to them all the reasons he believes that serving as attorney general has been ‘‘the greatest job in the world.’’ He didn’t mention having an affair and cavorting with employees in his condo.

Dann told the students that in life, success is doing something that you want to do and what makes you happy. ‘‘I’m doing what I love. I’m doing what I’m passionate about,’’ Dann said.

While saying that, Dann may have been thinking about the woman he had been having an affair with and he may have been thinking about partying in his condo. However, we’re confident the students put his words in a more mature context.

Dann’s overriding message that day was about picking yourself up after getting knocked down. He talked about losing a political race against much younger Timothy J. Ryan, now a congressional representative, but bouncing back to capture an Ohio Legislative seat. Dann is taking his own advice by refusing to quit, despite overwhelming pressure to resign as attorney general.

It may be wise for the educators who exposed their students to Dann to have a follow-up sit-down with the teens. It would not hurt to remind them that there is relevance to Dann’s message. And that this likely will not be the last time somebody lets them down.