In her column of Sept. 11 (“At what point is LePage simply not doing his job?“), Cynthia Dill’s riff on the word “discharge” was both discordant and jejune, yet another instance of her trying too hard to be clever.

Ms. Dill went on, employing questionable logic, to equate Gov. LePage’s obnoxiousness with incompetence. But not wanting to do his job, or wanting to do it in a way that infuriates Ms. Dill, is not the same as being unable to do it.

We well knew of Paul LePage’s flaws (or virtues, depending on your point of view) when we twice elected him. It is not entirely his fault if things have not worked out as well as we hoped they would.

Despite the lawyerly assertions of Ms. Dill and Ed Saxby (whom she quotes in her column), what we face is a political, not a legal, problem. We got ourselves into this mess and we will, on our own, have to find our way out of it. Neither the secretary of state nor the Maine Supreme Judicial Court can, or should be asked to, save us.

Perry H. Clark

Cape Elizabeth