I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – Harry Reid is the worst Senate Majority Leader the United States has ever had – and here’s a toast to his defeat in 2010:
The Roland Burris circus took a ludicrous turn today as Harry Reid and Senate Democrats threw the fate of the former Illinois attorney general, who was appointed by disgraced Governor Rod Blagojevich to fill the unexpired term of President-elect Barack Obama last week, back to Illinois and the office of Secretary of State Jesse White.
It was White who refused to sign off on Burris, rejecting the paperwork on the appointment while making it clear he would not certify any candidate appointed by a governor who tried to to sell the Senate seat to the highest bidder…
…when Mr. Burris dramatically tried to take his seat in the Senate, he was rebuffed by Secretary of the Senate Nancy Erikson, who told him that his paperwork was out of order, lacking as it did both White’s signature and the Great Seal of Illinois. This set up the dramatic meeting today between Burris and Reid to try and find a way out of this political quagmire, which was making the Democrats look ridiculous for having made a big show of denying Burris his seat only to retreat when the legal and political winds began to blow against them.
Reid, citing a 120-year-old Senate rule that required the signatures of both the governor and secretary of state on any appointment, lobbed the ball back into Jesse White’s court — a play that made the wizened old pol (and one of the most powerful Democrats in Illinois) get his back up and charge “Foul!”
“What the senate did to Roland Burris yesterday…they played a little bit of a game with him,” he [White] said.
The host asked him if he thought Reid had made him a “fall guy.”
“You’re absolutely correct,” he said. “It’s ugly.”
“I think the world of Roland Burris,” he said. “We’re the best of friends.”
“Roland Burris is going to be seated,” he predicted, saying he hopes Burris becomes the next senator from Illinois.
In effect, White is saying “No, thank you” to Harry Reid and telling him to fix his own darn messes.
What are we to make of this? Well, when one considers how Democrats act it must be kept in mind that the sole motivator for Democratic leaders is power – gaining and retaining it. Democrats are already looking at an almost sure loss of the Illinois governorship in 2010 and by extension a loss of Obama’s Senate seat. Blago has dragged the Democrat brand in Illinois down and while it might appear here and there that the Democrats of Illinois are still healthy, the lesson of what happened to the GOP in Ohio – where a corrupt GOP governor hung on like used chewing gum to the bottom of a desk – when a party is saddled with an unpopular governor. It works like acid – and it just makes everything fall apart in slow motion. Having Blago’s pick in Obama’s seat makes it very hard for Democrats to see a way to victory – and a loss of power is something Democrats just can’t abide.
And so when the Blago mess first arose, Democrats moved to break all ties with the governor – including making bold statements about not seating anyone Blago picked for Senator. Problem is, the case against Blago looks anything but airtight (sure, I think he’s guilty – I’ve been watching him for a while – but having a guilty politician and convicting a guilty politician are two different things), there is no legal basis for denying Blago’s appointment his seat and – worst of all, for Democrats – is that by appointing a well-regarded black man, Blago expertly played the race card and now Reid and the rest of the Democrats are squirming. Desperate to get off the hook, they are now trying to toss the matter back to the Illinois SecState, hoping that he’ll allow them to dodge the bullet by affixing his signature to Burris’ appointment, thus giving Reid the ability to say that he had no choice in the matter.
The best thing about this – for GOPers, that is – is the fact that there is no way out of this for the Democrats. Any way they turn, it all works out against them. Accept Burris, reject Burris and the GOP gains the advantage – and we gain this advantage for the simple reason that Democrats have so badly screwed up our politics by their politics of personal destruction that they are now hoist upon their own moist, incredibly disgusting petard. It is Democrats who invented the race card; it is Democrats who first started dealing that card from the bottom of the deck; it is Democrats who used guilt by association to go after GOPers; it is Democrats who set the standard that the mere appearance of impropriety is grounds for punishment.
For a long time, Democrats have gotten away with directing this only at GOPers – with the willing and enthusiastic help of the MSM, we’ve been playing a double game where GOPers have to be saints while Democrats could get away with being sinners. But now the game has changed – Democrats won the whole ball of wax. A scandal in the GOP just won’t carry much weight any more – who cares if some obscure, GOP backbencher gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar? People will care, however, if a Democrat governor is trying to sell a Senate seat – and they’ll especially care if The One, our great hope-n-change, is involved.
It still is a long, hard road back to power for us – but the Democrats are doing all they can to help us out.
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