To Seat or Not to Seat

I don’t know about you, but I’m absolutely amazed by this Senate storyline that has developed since Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) was disgraced weeks ago with a federal indictment.

Give the man some credit — he has chutzpah to go ahead and exercise his right as governor and to name Obama’s successor. I even felt his announcement speech of former Attorney General Roland Burris was impressive, in the Machiavellian political sense.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is in a pickle, no two ways about it. On the one hand, you have a perfectly capable individual who distinguished himself through his years of public service, fighting the corruption that tainted the man who granted him his seat, which now stands in political limbo.

To complicate matters, Mr. Burris is black. And he would be replacing the only black member of the greatest country club in the world. We need some color in that institution, folks! And if there’s nothing wrong with him from a mental, physical or even political perspective, then why not go ahead and seat him? If the argument is “We barely know the guy!” then please, no one look across the Great Lakes to see a woman named Kennedy trying to ascend to a similar seat in New York …

Then there are the arguments against Mr. Burris, and boy, there are many! The most obvious is the man who selected him makes Al Capone look like a dime-store crook. How can any Illinois citizen (or American, for that matter) possibly respect Burris because of his enabler? Isn’t he smart enough to see this for what it is? And doesn’t he know how badly this reflects on him and the august body he wants to be a part of?

But, setting perceptions aside — because that’s all they are right now — the issue that most bothers me about this selection is that we have yet to receive the entire story with respect to Gov. Blagojevich’s crimes. For all we know, Roland Burris was one of the names on Gov. Blagojevich’s list to offer up to the highest bidder. Can you imagine that? We wouldn’t even be having this conversation if somehow Mr. Burris were even tangentially linked to those deals. “Hot Rod” insists Mr. Burris was not part of any pay-to-play scheme, but judging by the character of the individual who made that statement, that’s almost a kiss of death for Mr. Burris.

Politics and live wires rarely mix well. And right now, it seems this is a live wire for the U.S. Senate. I’m amazed, however, by the skillful way that Mr. Burris has managed to get key Senate Democrats to huddle just close enough to that wire where someone may get shocked …

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