Roland Burris- What Were You Thinking? (UPDATED)

If good looks was a minute/ You know that you could've been an hour- Smokey Robinson, 'The Way You Do The Things You Do'

I know we at Shambollocks! have been very lax on our coverage of  Blagogate. The main reason- profound embarrassment. Sure, we always knew our politicians were crooked rubes. But at least our crooked rubes kept a fairly l0w profile. Dick the Mayor doesn’t seek the national spotlight. True, Gov. Ryan did get nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize while awaiting his trial. Generally speaking, though, local is local. Not now. Now, David Letterman does ‘Top-10′ lists about us, Jon Stewart compares our governors’ conviction rates to murderers, and nearly every camera-loving tout has painted us as a modern-day Gomorrah. It made me so anxious I couldn’t bear to post about my pain.

But then Blagogate turned to Burrisgate over the New Year’s. And now I’m no longer sad. I’m pissed.

Illinois is run by boobs. Power-hungry, venal, arrogant boobs. The kind of men who build crypts for themselves when they’re still alive, listing their accomplishments. Like the one above, built by Illinois’ junior [clenched teeth] Senator Roland Burris. Yes, Blagojevich found someone willing to except his bleeping ‘golden’ Senate seat. One would think after all the negative publicity surrounding Blagojevich, you wouldn’t get many takers for the seat. One would be wrong. Jesse Jr. campaigned for the seat, strong enough to make an appearance in Boy Blunder’s indictment. Now Burris will be the man.

Roland Burris is a hack, and an example of the worst Illinois politics has to offer. He has repeatedly run for state-wide offices and lost. For over two decades. And he most likely will be seated. The Democrats need all the warm bodies they can get in the Senate right now.

It’s moments like these where I would really love to choke Democratic party leaders. I never want to complain if a minority gets a job because of their skin color. So the race issue here does not get me irritated. What irritates me is how short-term their thinking is. Seat Burris now ’cause we need the numbers, and you risk a Senate seat in ‘10 in an overwhelmingly blue state. How great would it be for the Republicans to steal that seat away in two years? You don’t think that the state Republicans are licking their chops at the possibility of running against Burris?

But go ahead, Harry and the gang. Seat Burris if you must. But be prepared to spend precious resources in Illinois in two years if he’s still your candidate.

Next line to be chiseled into that crypt might be ‘Shortest serving US Senator from Illinois ever.’

Thanks to southbound_07’s flickr site for the pic.

- So it looks like Burris will be seated. Oy. One of the common outcries heard during this saga is that the governor was within his rights to name a replacement. I won’t address the fact that most of the people using this argument are Republicans who want Burris in their stocking in ‘10. No, what I will bring up is what Thomas Geoghegan, candidate for Illinois’ 5th Congressional, wrote in Tuesday’s New York Times. The 17th Amendment, ratified in 1913, states that when Senate seats become vacant ‘governors “shall issue writs of elections to fill such vacancies”’. There it is. Legally, Blagojevich should have called a special election. What governors use to bypass the above is in the second paragraph of the amendment: “Provided, that the legislature of any state may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.”

Temporary appoinments. Not give the seat away. So it says here, what Blago did was illegal, and we should sue in Federal Court to re-open this seat.

At the beginning of this, I was against a special election because I had no idea that Blago was crazy enough to to actually select someone. If the worst case situation occurred and he did select someone, I thought that there was no one who would accept. I was wrong on both hands. There is no basement in Illinois politics.

So who wants to join with me and file a suit in Federal Court stopping this process?

Best part of the Burris’ appearance in front of the House impeachment panel this afternoon was the revelation that somebody named Joseph Stroud of Telephone USA Investments loaned Burris’ 2002 gubernatorial (God, I love that word)campaign $1.2 million dollars. And he has not asked for a penny of that back. Yesterday, if you remember, Burris said he couldn’t have paid for the Senate seat because he was broke. {Head shake] Last honest man in Illinois, shut out the lights.

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