That unpleasant petard
Jan 6, 2009 Politics and Poker
It’s pathetic all ’round to see a fellow like Roland Burris, who by indications appears to be a gentleman at the very least (or perhaps at most), reduced to this:
Democrats and Obama have said that the corruption charges against Blagojevich would strip credibility from anyone he appoints to the seat. Burris and many of his supporters have suggested that the real reason for the rejection involved race.
Blagojevich denies federal accusations that he tried to sell Obama’s seat. Democrats, for their part, deny that race has anything to do with Burris’ rejection and say that it’s a reflection on Blagojevich.
Did Burris really make such a stupid — outrageous, really — “suggestion”? That characterization doesn’t seem consistent with this quote later in the article:
Burris himself downplayed the issue of race, telling reporters: “I cannot control my supporters. I have never in my life, in all my years of being elected to office, thought anything about race.”
Well, that makes one of him. His claim of color-free thinking through a long lifetime in Chicago politics is hard to credit. As I edit this I see Glenn Reynolds thnking the same thing: “He lies well enough to be a member of the Senate, anyway!” Burris is what he is.
Not having to say you're sorry
But more specifically, there’s no question that the cynical crook who appointed him (and, really, there does not seem to be any bona fide legal ground on which to challenge that appointment) thought that selecting a black politician would be the very least he could do to insulate the appointment from attack.
It didn’t work, and it’s a shame for Burris, though it seems likely that but for the scandal that he would not have been the appointee. But the multifaceted irony of the Senate’s Democratic majority being unfairly accused of racism when all it is really guilty of is crass political posturing… that may make it worth the price of admission. So to speak.
