Burris In

by Dean Esmay on January 12, 2009

in Politics

I’ve been thinking for a while now that this was a foregone conclusion, but now it’s happened: Roland Burris is the next Senator from the State of Illinois.

{ 5 comments }

1 CosmicConservative January 13, 2009 at 11:25 am

This is simply the result of Democrat leaders trying to play image politics.

CosmicConservative’s last blog post..?Rocket? perjury Grand Jury convenes

2 Paul S. January 13, 2009 at 11:32 am

So much for Obama’s post racial political era.  Or does that not start officially until 1/20?

3 CosmicConservative January 13, 2009 at 12:38 pm

Paul, I guess I’m missing the ACTUAL "racial" element of this. I know there’s a lot of CLAIMED and PERCEIVED "racial" stuff, but I don’t see any ACTUAL racial elements to the story.

CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Hillary’s influence peddling?

4 Paul S. January 13, 2009 at 1:32 pm

Perhaps that element didn’t get the national play that I perceive (I live in Chicago).

Blagojevich is trying to cause as much havoc as possible, and I feel safe in saying that he appointed Roland Burris because he was black and calculated (correctly apparently) that the image of white guys with arms crossed not letting a black guy into the Senate would not play well.  Now, I’m not saying that Burris is unqualified (it’s arguable) but I am saying if he was white, no way does Blago (who is diabolical) make that appointment.

Bobby Rush (former Black Panther, longtime Chicago Rep for US Congress) took the mic at the news conference to announce Burris’s appointment and warned reporters "not to hang or lynch the appointee."  Blago gave Rush the platform, probably realizing how ineffective it would have been for himself to make such a warning.

We’re not done yet though. 

The next day on The Early Show, Rush compared Harry Reid and Senate leaders with segregationist icons of years past (Bull Connor, George Wallace, etc) and called the US Senate "the last bastion of plantation politics."

Blagojevich knows his way around identity politics and completely outmaneuvered Senate leadership using Bobby Rush who was all too happy to implement the tactic. 

5 Dean Esmay January 13, 2009 at 3:45 pm

That element was perfectly clear to me living here near Detroit, Paul.

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