Blogs For Victory

Governor Blagojevich – indicted, but not convicted and under American usage innocent until proven guilty – has made his selection to fill President-Elect Obama’s seat. Roland Burris, from what I can quickly gather about him, seems a rather uninteresting, Democratic political wheel horse. Probably a decent man and certainly someone who can at least represent Illinois in the Senate in rough accord with the expressed will of the Illinois electorate. But Blagojevich is toxic to Democrats – you see, he risks Democrats in power…there’s a chance a GOPer might even win the Illinois governorship and Obama’s Senate seat in 2010, and that is something which cannot be tolerated. And so, Senate Majority Leader Reid has come out against seating Blagojevich’s choice:

In what is shaping up to be an unprecedented political row, disgraced Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois has named former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris to replace Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate.

The problem is that the chances of Mr. Burris — a well respected, squeaky clean, more than qualified African-American — ever taking his seat in the Senate chamber are not very good. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid released a statement regarding the Burris appointment where he flatly rejects the idea of seating anyone chosen by the current Illinois governor, who is accused of trying to sell the Senate seat to the highest bidder:

It is truly regrettable that despite requests from all 50 Democratic Senators and public officials throughout Illinois, Gov. Blagojevich would take the imprudent step of appointing someone to the United States Senate who would serve under a shadow and be plagued by questions of impropriety. We say this without prejudice toward Roland Burris’s ability, and we respect his years of public service. But this is not about Mr. Burris; it is about the integrity of a governor accused of attempting to sell this United States Senate seat. Under these circumstances, anyone appointed by Gov. Blagojevich cannot be an effective representative of the people of Illinois and, as we have said, will not be seated by the Democratic Caucus.

The statement also called on Blagojevich to “put the interests of the people of Illinois and all Americans first by stepping aside now and letting his successor appoint someone who we will seat.” The statement was endorsed by Illinois’ senior senator, Dick Durbin, who has been calling for a special election to fill the vacancy — something many local Democrats wish to avoid due to the possibility that a Republican might win.

The Constitution gives each house of the Legislature the sole right to determine whom shall be seated – so, Reid can do what he says he’ll do and it’ll be perfectly legal…but should Reid do it?

On one hand, Reid gets to play the outraged tribune of the people – that he’s also the guy who gets lobbied by his own children for government money and that he’s had some rather shady land deals out here in Nevada doesn’t seem to impinge upon Reid’s calculations here. On the other hand, all this blow up over Blago’s choice does is bring the Blago issue – and the larger issue of Democrat corruption – back to front and center, not something Democrats need a mere 21 days before The One takes office.

Burris is also a barrier-breaking African-American – the first, I understand, to hold State-wide office in Illinois and, also, the desired (by racial bean counters) black man to replace a black man in the Senate. Is Burris going to be out for good, now? What will happen if the putative next governor appoints a white man to replace Obama? Burris is going to have his ardent defenders in the African-American community, and justly so as he seems a good man…Democrats have brewed this toxic mix of race-baiting and racial quotas and now they are completely hoist upon their own petard: to go after Blago’s choice, now, means going after a black man. It won’t be long before someone says that Reid is motivated by a desire to keep an authentic black leader out of the Senate (and you know how those Mormons had a history of discriminating against blacks back there in the past, right?)…

Then there is now the new fight – Blago has made it not just about him and his indictment, but about carrying out the job he was elected to do and working for the best interests of the people of Illinois, while everyone else on the Democrat side is only worrying about electoral politics. Blago can now cast himself as the selfless warrior of the people, brought low by They who want to keep the people down. This is nonsense, of course, but there will be liberals to buy such a line of thinking – we’ve seen just this past November how entirely gullible liberals are for a good fairy tale.

A nasty bit of politics here – and a lot of fun for a GOPer to watch…especially a GOPer who saw the Democrats’ way out of it a while ago and watched as they blew their chance to bury this dead cat quickly.