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Roland Burris, Off The Hook
I've just read the U.S. Attorney's filings Tuesday, asking to send along a recording of a telephone call the government says our junior senator had with the brother of our impeached former governor. It's a bit of information the Senate Ethics Committee might find interesting.
I've followed Roland Burris his entire political career and covered him while he was Illinois Attorney General and during his gubernatorial campaign in 1994.
I've always thought of Roland Burris, as he likes to call himself, as basically an honorable man.
Until today.
Even through the post-appointment revelations, I was still still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I thought, seriously, 'Here is a nice man who is out of his depth and it's probably not as bad as it seems.'
Well, I was wrong, and I sadly admit to being wrong.
What we hear here is damning and damnable. Burris knows exactly what he is doing. All these years I thought he was decent but dim. Turns out it was an act that I, and many others in Illinois, bought.
There may or may not be anything legally actionable in the footsie Burris plays with Rob Blagojevich in wondering how to raise the money the brothers Blagojevich wanted and still make it look as though he wasn't buying his way into the U.S. Senate, but it's morally and ethically repugnant. The fact that he audibly works through this amoral relativism is damning enough. Harry Reid and Dick Durbin had it right the first time, before this evidence was public: He is unfit.
Burris is a disgrace and should resign. We know, however, that he won't.
But how he will ever be able to look a single citizen of the state of Illinois in the eye and proclaim that he isn't dirty is unfathomable.
I thank Patrick Fitzgerald for having the tenacity to tap these phone lines. And I thank the timing of the release of this transcript.
The Illinois General Assembly is in the end-of-session throes of deciding what to do about the recommendations of the Illinois Reform Commission appointed by Gov. Patrick Quinn.
Seeing this now makes it all the more imperative that legislators act on the pure recommendations sent up by commission chief Patrick Collins and his fellow commission members.
Enough.
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I can't understand why people in Chicago never protest.
they should be out in droves, demanding Change. These guys are feeding off them.
Burris is part of that "old" Chicago political machine....the Richard J. Daley machine.
I was born and raised in Lake Co., IN., and always thought that it was part of Chicago. No difference in politics, in fact, police would find burned out cars in some of our fields....waaayy before interstates.
Of course, I was young enough to think that Chicago was a state. We went to visit relatives in IL...that was a different state. Oh, that pre-school logic.
I'm still surprised at the surprise at the "Chicago-Style" politics generates. Didn't we have a primer in machine politics in like middle school, and then those of us who went on to study politics and government learned all about "Chicago-Style" politics and that it was still around?
You're right Burris was playing this from the begining, but the fact that you didn't see it when the rest of us did is telling. It didn't take much of gut instinct to know that the whole situation was dirty pool. Reid gave in to the pressure (though, again, it didn't take much to see that coming) and seated him though Burris should never have been. Funny thing, I seem to recall a lot of support for him on this site, where are all the Burris supporters?
Chicago politics has a reputation for a reason. Burris survived and lived to garner a better retirement. I'd say he's the one smiling.
Looks like you're a little naive. I knew Burris was a phony the minute I heard about his shrine, and the whole Blago Senate seating mess.
How dare you: he just helped an old woman with her bag on a plane!
`Decent but dim', at least you were half right.
Seemingly the Chicago media is attempting to stand on their dainty little feet
after being overcome with a serious case of the vapors after learning of the until
now, unknown breaking news concerning this rough and tumble 'Chicago-Style' politics.
When you get your dander up, and if you can spare a few real reporters from
the breaking news revelation that politics may be dirty at times, maybe you can
send them to the South Side and shed light on the scores of African American
and Latino children that are being murdered daily just miles from the Northwestern
campus, and the lack of justice being doled out.
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