From the Chicago Tribune — Originally published Tuesday, Jan. 13

So it’s settled: Caving to political pressure and a group bout of multiple personality disorder, Senate Democrats said Monday that they expect to seat Roland Burris this week.

That five-week melodrama of Harry Reid [D-Nev.], Dick Durbin [D-Ill.] and other senators alternately renouncing any Rod Blagojevich appointment and then cooing in Burris’ ear? That’s over. Senate Democrats want you to burn your notes: Forget and maybe you’ll forgive.

Yet the senators have made that impossible. Instead they’ve provided Illinois voters — the voters they elbowed out of this Senate choice — with two years of rich reminders:

Every time voters see Roland Burris, they’ll think of that other notorious RB, Rod Blagojevich. Burris wants this Senate seat so desperately that he’ll even accept it from a guy who allegedly tried to sell it.

… Every time we think of Dick Durbin and recall his unequivocal demand for a special election — “No appointment by this governor under these circumstances could produce a credible replacement” — we’ll think of Rod Blagojevich. …