Roland Burris will take his seat in the U.S. Senate on Thursday, but he shouldn’t expect a warm welcome. Republicans are ready to portray Burris as a poster child for all that’s wrong with the Democratic Party, and Democrats aren’t sure that they want to back him if he runs for the seat in 2010.
“That’s hypothetical, and I don’t think I’m going to comment on it,” Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, the senior senator from Illinois, said Tuesday when asked about supporting Burris in two years.
Durbin said Burris will be facing a “new world. Although he has a good, strong record in public service, he’s going to have to acclimate himself in the Senate, prepare himself and do the best he can.”
Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, a heavyweight in the Democratic Party and a member of the party’s Senate leadership, shrugged when asked if the party would get behind a Burris bid in 2010.
“I don’t even — I’m not commenting,” the usually talkative Schumer told Politico.
If you have Schumer and Durbin declining comment then you know there's some fire where you see all that smoke. Despite all the "hey, he's a good guy and has been a good public servant" talk, they're not at all happy about having had to eat their words and seat someone they said they'd refuse to seat.
And then there is the attempt to make this more about race than being outmaneuvered politically:
How come Roland Burris has had such an easy time getting to the U.S. Senate while Caroline Kennedy has had such a hard time?
Could it be that the race card trumps the gender card in U.S. politics?
Well, yes. It could be.
Once supporters of Roland Burris made his appointment to the Senate all about race, the deal was done, though it took a few days for Senate leaders to wake up to the fact.
Really? Is that why they had to 'wake up' to the "fact"?
Or was it because there really wasn't any legal bar to Roland Burris being seated in the US Senate and that was finally and unequivocally explained to the Senate's leadership?
This was always more about Blago than Burris.
So the fact that one yahoo played the race card, i.e. former Black Panther and now IL Representative Bobby Rush, doesn't make this a "racial problem" no matter how hard one tries.
Why is Caroline Kennedy having such a rough time? Well, you know, she, you know, has no, you know, experience, you know, in public, you know, service, you know.
And consequently it's rather hard to claim that she's the best candidate for the job. Of course, I imagine if one tried hard enough they could cobble together some lame argument that it is all about sexism, couldn't they?
And of course, if she doesn't get it, someone will.
I think it’s a stretch to say Blago had the last laugh. If he avoids prison, perhaps, but if the guy relocates to an 8x5 cell, pretty much everyone can have the last laugh on him.
Once again, Harry Reid is shown to be a complete and utter moron. ’Nuff said.
The Democrats looked like racists and folded faster than a $2 tent.
The GOP stayed back and let the Dems self-destruct themselves.
The Dems are still stuck with Blagojevich and still have to go forward with the impeachment trial - which comes just as The Clown™ will be begging the country for support for his "Let’s Spend Us Into Bankruptcy" Package. Blago’s trial is much more fun to watch, and will be on all the networks all day, with re-runs at night. Who wants to see The Clown™ make a speech when we can watch real political drama over a crook in Illinois who will soon be in prison? Do you want to watch the State of the Union or Britney Spears’ meltdown? My vote is with Britney - and Blago. So will most of the nation.
Plus, on top of all of this fun, the Dems are now stuck with Roland Burris, who makes some dead people look exciting by comparison. I said to a friend that if Burris died in his Senate seat, some people might not realize it and just keep walking by him. He is DULL, personified.
If the Republicans play this right, let Burris be Burris (a numbskull way out of his league), let Blago be Blago, and let the Dems be the Dems (in short, overreach in every direction politically), in 2010 we can run a good candidate on "change from corruption" in Illinois and possibly pick up that seat. The younger the better, who will make the-then 73 year old Burris look even more dim than he looks now, and that is quite shocking.
