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If Burris is seated before Illinoians can determine for themselves the extent of his involvement with Rod Blagojevich, Burris may well end up the loser.
The Illinois GOPers on the Impeachment Committee have an opportunity to dredge up Burris’ connections, contributions and deal making with Blagojevich and sit it upon his head for 2010.
Burris may have wanted to become a senator in the worst way - and it looks like he just has.
I may or may not agree with your assesment of the posibility of an african american being elected but honestly aren't you glad at least Illinois will not be in the news for that and once the Gov thing is over maybe we can be known again for being the state that the President is from.
Gov. F Bomb will shortly have the spotlight all to himself again and it ain't going to be pretty.
Unbelievable.
I think Professor Marshall hit the nail on the head and stated it succinctly- Burris has no scruples, perhaps even due to cluelessness, and is all about himself.
But, knowing that, the US Senate Democrats are AOK with it. All they need is another reliable vote, to inch closer to the "golden" goal of a filibuster-proof majority. They have sized up Burris and know they can count on him to vote the way they instruct -- isn't that how he made his bones up to now anyway? Since, at the end of the day, that is all they care about, they will invite Burris into the club and seat him as Senator. In weeks time, he will be old news and a safe Dem vote.
I liked the comment a while back comparing the situation to the Lord of the Rings. Not unlike Burris, the members of the our state legislature thought THEY had the gold ring by ONCE AGAIN trusting the Governor at his word that he wouldn't appoint a replacement. Rich cautioned what a disaster it would be if the Governor went ahead and made an "annointment" and look what has happened.
I look at the smug smile on Burris' face and it is the true symbol of Illinois politics.
When Burris testifies on Thursday, claim you have not had enough time to vet the background of Mr. Burris and his alleged connections to effectively cross examine him. Make his testimony. Don't make any waves, and let the Majority allow him to become a Senator.
The bad stuff can be used later, once he's the Senator... and the goat.
have avoided it if 1) the had pushed thru the
bill for a special election and 2)NOT said at
the head end that they wouldn't accept anyone
appointed by Blago. It was inevitable that Blado
would find SOMEONE willing to accept the appointment, regardless of what Harry Reid wanted
done about the matter.
Maybe the Lord did ordain this, and then again, maybe it is the end times and Illinois hides the pit of hell mentioned in Revelations.
But the fact is, Blago is still the governor and the laws are clear. You can't refuse to seat a senator on the grounds of "I don't like it". If you want to change the law, change it. I would have liked to see a special election too. I would have even tolerated a blue ribbon Democrat commission headed by Durbin or someone else that imposed a pick on Blago.
But lack of political backbone does not create a blanket exemption to start punching holes in state law, federal law and the US Constitution. Reid's argument that the Senate can refuse to seat anyone they want should be terrifying to anyone thinking the issue through. The same argument could be made to not seat someone duly elected or for one party not to seat another party simply because they didn't want them around. This is not a "might makes right" country, we are a national of laws. Burris shouldn't have taken the seat, Blago shouldn't have appointed him, but Burris is still the senator. We can vote him out in Feb. 2010.
Not one who had been elected FOUR times statewide.
Four.
While it is not pretty, once (and thank you to DiFi for pushing the tiny snowball down hill) he is seated, Burris will owe no one anything.
He knows "the establishment" did not want him. He knows there will be a billion people filing against him in a primary.
And he will have two years to decide if he wants to be CMB, or PF.
We will see :)
That is a crummy, drive-by slam, Rich. What do you mean 'Typical'?????
Why doesn't main stream media or Dem leadership ever make this point?
The only time that the national media will really dig in and check the background of a politician is if they are a pro-life, NRA member Governor from Alaska. Other than that, they don't want to look into details. That was proven by their big surprise about Bill Richardson's shenanigans.
Matt Murphy for CookCo Board Prez in 2010! woot!
As I've said, this is not a tragedy. Burris will vote the Democratic program, as would any Dem senator from Illinois. He's a mediocrity at best but so are scores of other Senators. The Senate job is, well, a sinecure if the incumbent wants it to be. And many Senators want just that.
The p0l who should be excoriated here is Harry Reid. All that theater and one wonders if the plan wasn't to seat Burris all along. Could he have been playing to the folks back home? I think he is facing a tough re-election bid.
I hope Reid sticks it to Illinois Dems when he finally announces that Burris is going to get his seat. They could have stopped this in so many ways.
gutless state Dems wanted the national Dems to do their dirty work. Glad the national Dems didn't cave.
WTH, I strongly disagree. IL politics being pushed to the forefront of the national political scene may be the best disinfectant for the rampant and ingrained corruption, bloat, and mismanagement that state residents have been accustomed to for far too long. We richly deserve to be made an example of.
Burris has been rejected multiple times as a statewide Democratic candidate. His list of accomplishments are tainted by a number of actions in both his capacity as AG and his brazen acceptance of the senate nomination from a disgraced and morally bankrupt governor. What little credibility he maintained has vanished for alligning himself with Blagojevich and his claims of never considering race as a factor in his decision making, which is contradicted by the etchings on his crypt, amongst others.
He's now, at age 71, the low man on the senate totem pole, surrounded by people in his own majority party that he patronized and that stated, in writing, of having no interest in him being a colleague. Think he'll be afforded the opportunity to get plum committee assignments or advance meaningful legislation over the next 2 years?
He's practically guaranteed credible opposition from both statewide parties in 2010. And by credible I mean anyone else who chooses to run against him.
Good riddance to all of these hooligans.
You were so sure of the US Senate's ability to squash this thing like a bug yesterday. And I was starting to have my doubts about my opinion that Burris would eventually prevail, too, after reading Lawrence Tribe's reasoning.
Just goes to show you, politics has a way of twisting and turning on a moment's notice. Feinstein was like a dirty bomb exploding in downtown Manhattan.
Give Burris his d*mn seat already. If there is any evidence Burris is tainted, let's hear it. Otherwise put up or shut up.
This small round goes to Blago. He was under a microscope and so he picked a defensible choice. It's not more complicated than that. The law is clearly on Burris' side. Time for Harry Reid and the Blago haters to cut their losses on this one little front.
Blago's gone in a matter of weeks, 2 months at the most. This time next year his criminal trial could be underway.
This Burris thing is small potatoes. With a new Pres coming in and a new Gov shortly after that, this latest distraction will soon be forgotten.
Statements like "I really don’t think the Democrats understand the ramifications of seating Burris. They are about to make Illinois turn Repub and probably bring other states along as well" are just naive and silly.
We'll have a new Pres and a new Gov who will both be in their honeymoon periods. The Republican Party will be back to square one. The Dems still hold all the best cards in Illinois.
Drama isn't a strategy.
This was a very unexpected mistake on the part of the Democrats, and the result is that there will be bitter Democratic primaries in several statewide races, and multiple political problems at the top of the resulting ticket.
For some time now it has been difficult to predict the lowest political point for the state GOP, but I now think it is safe to say this point was immediately after the just-completed election cycle. This surely will be the time for the GOP to put forward Kirk for Senate and a similar gubernatorial candidate with a profile acceptable to statewide voters. This wil be their big break, and I hope they recognize and act on it.
Put this comment in a safe place and we'll discuss in 22 months.
On to the next disaster in waiting...
Have you given any thought to what would happen if, say, the Governor did now show up to covene the Senate for the election of a President on the 14th?
I do like that phrase of “shameless opportunist hungry for media exposureâ€. Kinda defines a huge number of people…
Ummm Senator don't forget Ronald Reagan
The amazing thing to me about all this is that the Illinois perspective on this matter-- and I would include my friend Rich -- pays little heed to the rule of law. The Constitution and laws of the land back the governor's play. The Democrats were feeble, indecisive, and incompetent at both the state and national levels. Burris is their reward.
And the idea that Harry Reid and the Senate or the Sec. of State of Illinois gets to decide who sits in the Senate when the law and the Constitution states otherwise -- that the people of Illinois through the process they set up decide who represents them. The fact that it the end the Gov. was under a cloud and Burris is an egomaniac is a problem for voters, not office holders at the head of a corrupt party.
If it were Cheney and Bush instead of Reid and White trying to overreach and abuse their power in this manner half the country would be breathing into paper bags trying to calm themselves down.
I personally think Burris should be seated, BUT I'd have a lot more respect if they announced they weren't going to seat him than to act like they are following a process. They are just setting up their "out" rather than acknowledging Burris and Blago called their bluff.
They are now. Will they be next election time? Maybe not.
Burris "knows"
We will need to disagree. Someone can be intelligent and still have an ego.
the law
Well, the Senate can indeed agree to "waive" the SOS certification. It is interesting that we will slide SOS White for "following his conscience" but we won't give that right to others in private industry.
Truth be told, it is SOS's duty to simply put the IL Seal to those papers to say "Yes, the Gov REALLY did appoint Burris". How do we force an elected officer to do his duties of office?
Oh, if only we had an answer to that, perhaps the past six years under our current Governor would not have been in vain....
Just a rookie mistake that PEBO neglected to give advance notice to the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on his selection for CIA chief?
This is a pretty big mistake for anyone to make. That the opposition may come from PEBO's own party only further damages the confirmation chances.
Where's Rahmbo? Is he the COS or what?
Loved the way they threw Jesse White under the bus.
How much say will he have on where all of this Federal money goes in the next two years? To State Senate districts supporting the Guv in his trial?
All this to avoid a special election.
I'm not saying he should...it's completely his prerogative, and I support his decision NOT to sign the paper. But from what I can tell, he could control the timing if he wants.
Now Jesse White himself is trying to distance himself from the situation. "They could have seated him without my signature," White told WGN Radio this morning. "My signature is not necessarily required in order for the Senate to place the gentleman in the seat that he was appointed to by Gov. Blagojevich…My signature is mostly ceremonial rather than being a point of law."
"Do you feel like you're the fall guy on this?" asked WGN's John Williams. "The Senate conveniently has you to dodge their responsibility when they could have seated him."
"You're absolutely correct," White said.
Williams asked it another way. "You feel, just to be clear, that while they said you signature, which should be there, is not, and therefore they won't seat Roland Burris, it's your opinion that they don't need that signature, that they could have seated him if they wanted to?"
"That's exactly right," White said. "They're talking about seating him now, without my signature."
Finally, White was asked if he hopes Burris becomes the next senator from Illinois. "Sure, certainly," White said.
Perhaps the Senate Democrats realized that this seat is up for contention in 2010 - then Illinois residents can cast their vote for a U.S. Senator of their choosing.
I, for one, am heartened to have African-American representation in the U.S. Senate.
Also, wasn't the crux of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's the filling of the U.S. Senate seat. This recent development strengthens Governor Blagojevich's contention that the wire taps confirmed merely "words" rather than "actions." The case against the Governor has been weakened to say the least.
BTW, Russ Limbaugh is cranking up the Jefferson's theme song, "Movin on up" in tribute to Burris. Poor taste maybe, but I must admit, I chuckled.
But who cares what we think.
Not anymore. This tainted seat was revealed to be poisoned on December 9th, 2008. Obama's seat became an electric chair. Whoever wanted to sit in that thing after that is a numbskull.
Burris is so compromised by his enthusiastic embrace of Rod Blagojevich's proposal of love, it took a man of even greater self love to fall for it. Burris has that. His monument to self love sits among the tombstones, as testiment to his need for attention.
"I'm the magic man!"
"We're the Senator!"
2010 will be a GOP year. Obama's administration is in over it's head with global and fiscal meltdowns and voters will be in an angry mood by next year. Rich's warning was not heeded by Roland Burris, and we will discover that voters will not elect Rod Blagojevich's pick in 2010.
And the law is on Burris's side. If there were even an indictment against Blago right now, it might be different. But there isn't yet. Obviously one is coming, but it's not here yet. Nor has Blago been impeached yet. It's coming, but it's not here yet.
And if Reid hadn't been so pig-headed I would think he would be thinking that Burris is likely to vote with the Democrats most of the time, because, he is a Democrat. Once Franken's (D-MN) seat is out of litigation, adding one more senator from IL means that it takes one whole more vote for the GOP to filibuster successfully, which helps Reid (fivethirtyeight did the math on that recently.)
I'm not even sure Burris would run for re-election. He might, then again, he might not.
This is getting tiresome. The law is the law, and its still absolutely positively wrong in every fashion to seat Roland Burris. Many things that are legal are plain wrong, and Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, and all the rest are showing how little spine they have today by caving in.
I have not been this angry in a long time concerning a politcal matter.
===I find it weird why no one mentions the real reason why Burris does not deserve this seat. It is because others were unfairly and illegally excluded before his selection. Why should Roland Burris be the beneficiary of an illegal selection process? The taint is not selecting Roland Burris, it was illegally excluding the others.
Why doesn’t main stream media or Dem leadership ever make this point? ===
Saving the Rule of Law and Democracy is more important than saving face. Burris will not be re-elected and Blago will be impeached and ultimately removed from office and Pat Quinn will inherit all of the problems the state is facing. Be careful what you wish for, you may get it.
One could take a bike trip on the backpedaling by Reid and Durbin during that presser.
Senate: Burris will run for "re-election" with no name opposition in the Primary. He will not be opposed because he will have the AA vote in his hip pocket. By Nov. 2010, as an elder statesman, of which there are few in Illinois, he will win by a significant margin.
Governor Candidates:
For Sure: Quinn, Madigan, Blago.
Possible: Hynes
Secretary of State Candidates:
For Sure: None
Probable: Giannoulias, White
Possible: Hynes
Giannoulias is not going to win the Gov nominiation but has a chance at SOS because of the AA resentment against White. Tumbling will get you only so far with AAs.
Why are you angry over Burris? Do you not like him personally? Is it just because it's a small battle that goes to Blago? I'm pretty sure Blago's gonna lose the war, here. I mean, sure there are maybe better pols than Burris, but I don't find him so objectionable as to get angry about it. He's a decent man with a long career in IL politics. Has he made mistakes during his life? Undoubtedly, most do and the ones who don't lie about it. We're only stuck with him 'till 2010 anyway.
So Reid is ok with Pay to play.
Setting aside the various folks who insist the law requires Burris be seated, setting aside thast I think that analysis is wrong on its face, the "law" is not the blind rigid document many pundits and commentors are implying. The "law" has lon recognized the doctorine of public policy, which allows for interpretations ofprovisions which step outside the 4 corners of the document, and allows for findings that are in the best interest of the public (i.e. the Senate being allowed to block a non-elected appointed senator from a Govenor who has specificaly been idnicted for trying to sell the appointment)
Why aren't you?
Blagojevich needed a stooge and this mausoleum edifice raising egomaniac took the bait and claimed God talked to Rod to approve his appointment. God obviously didn't talk to Rod because we don't have God on the FBI tapes, do we?
And you are OK with that?
Perhaps Burris will add a few lines to his monument which could read, "Wasn't an axe murderer", or "A decent man with a long career in IL politics", or "Good enough until 2010".
Sorry we are so emotional over this obvious deception, but even sorrier you are not.
Anon 1:06 - what are you smoking? can I have some?
Burris will not only lose the democratic primary, he may very well lose to another African American. He got less than 50% of the black vote each of his last 3 elections. This phony baloney racial politics being hyped by Bobby Rush will be forgotten in a matter of weeks, but come election day 2010 voters will still know that Blago (who will be on trial or in jail at the time) was the one who appointed Burris. Burris doesn't care, he got the last title for his tombstone. Good for him.
Burris did not put Cruz on death row. I believe that was done by DuPage states attorneys Fitzsimmons & Ryan. Burris simply didn't use his office to drop the appeal before the IL Supreme Court. No doubt he feared if he looked soft on crime he would lose the election for governor he was running at the time. It was a mistake, in retrospect, but I can understand it. If he had dropped the case, the DuPage GOP would have used it against him and all Dems for the rest of forever. And Cruz, was, eventually released after winning a key Supreme court case and after Birkett finally stopped his Captain Ahab impersonation.
We can give him the Blue Room for an afternoon, and he or his staff can interview Blago's attorney, Roland Burris, Lou Lang, Jack Franks, Bill Black, and the Elvis statue in the governor's office.
Sometime after all this is over, let's see if we can get a few adults elected. We can all dish it out, so I guess we have to be able to take a little of this. But Darn, I hope the State isn't planning on making a career of it.
Old school politics got us into this...20 some years of increasingly inept R's, then 6 plus of really dismal Dems. R's get next turn...let's hope the bad 'uns are retired or jailed, and an honest one or two come forward to get us out of this. At this point (borrowing liberally from WFBuckley), I'd rather be governed by the first 200 names listed in the Springfield phone book than the crew we've got in there now.