Classy Indeed

A reader at TPM thinks pretty highly of Burris:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2008/12/blagos_new_gamb.php
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Amy, sorry I called you a winger yesterday, I did lump you in w/ the rest of em, but if there's one group in this country that has earned that, it's evangelicals. Sorry, but you know it's true. I guess maybe you are a liberal, I mean what journalist working in the corporate media would admit to that unless they were? So I'm willing to cut you slack and see where you go from here on out.

Showing he's still really good at thinking things all the way through
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I like the snark.

Oh, excellent - somewhere in Connecticut, Joe Lieberman is thanking God for Blago this holiday season.

wow! how HORRIBLE that Blago is giving an african american a shot at illinois senate seat!

Lets not forget that the only reason Obama was the nominee for that seat was because his primary opposition imploded. By giving Burris the power of incumbency, he is providing an african american politician with a chance to win in the next election.

Burris never should have accepted, based on the circumstances. He's now toxic.
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There is no way Senate Dems can allow a Blago pick to be seated. No way.

This guy just won't get along. Suppose we shouldn't be surprise when Blago breaks his word...

Now the fun get started: Will Burris ever serve? How does Reid handle this mess? Will Burris simply withdraw from the appointment? And if Burris does get blocked/step aside, does Blago keep trying to get a Senator seated in D.C.?

http://www.political-buzz.com/

Lynn Sweet reports Reid planning to stand pat in not accepting him. Blago, knowing that, decided to make Reid reject a black politician. Not cynical or anything.
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http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/12/roland_burris_to_be_named_to_r.html

It occurs to me that with the mess in Minnesota, and now Illinois, Obama has kept the senate Dems from looking like they just want to choose their colleagues, by encouraging them to accept Lieberman.

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*yawns*
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Other than the quip from Blagojevich's radio interview, no new information or insight here...I'm hoping that God Girl's got more game than she's shown so far by re-heating Tumulty posts, hula hoops, and all those wonderful posts over at the Washington Monthly.
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kathy
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Did you see Mika's dad PWN Scarborough this morning?

A little more Illinois trivia to keep folks up to speed as to who's who.....

http://www.jessewhitetumblingteam.com/about_jessewhite.php

In 1959, White founded the internationally known Jesse White Tumbling Team to serve as a positive alternative for the children residing in Chicago's Cabrini-Green and Henry Horner public housing communities. Since the team's inception, over 8,500 young men and women have performed with the team. White has worked for over 45 years as a volunteer with the team to help kids stay away from gangs, drugs, alcohol and smoking, and to help set at-risk youth on the path to success.

The news conference is sad, sad. Blago playing the past-generation race card, and Bobby Rush playing along. How sad.

sg - no I didn't, alas, and I don't have audio. But I read about it on Huffpo. Good for Zbig. Poor Mika. I'm going to be curious to see how Joe gives Mika grief for this.
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Bobby Rush has now told the senate not to lynch Blago's appointment. Oh good.

Quinn holding presser right now. I'm wondering if this is his role. hard spot to be in. Secty of state is refusing to certify the Burris appointment, maybe rescuing Reid's iron from the fire (so to speak).

It's a great move by Blagojevich, no matter how dislikeable he is. Blagojevich isn't going anywhere anytime soon, he picked a relatively likeable and non-controversial person (a caretaker really), Illinois needs a senator much more than a vacancy, and the Democrats need all the senate votes they can get. It seems that Blagojevich has a pretty strong position in the short term.
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Reid, Quinn, Durbin, etc. have dug themselves in a hole. The more furiously they dig, the deeper the hole gets. Who did they think Blagojevich would nominate, William Cellini, George Ryan or Tony Rezko?
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As Will Rogers said: "I'm not a member of an organized party. I'm a Democrat."

OK, now that we've analyzed everyone's motives we're let with this question: why should Burris be denied a seat to which he was duly appointed under valid existing law? I mean, if Blago signed a duly adopted criminal statute into law (e.g., making child abuse a higher-level felony) would a defendant be allowed to challenge his prosecution on the grounds that the governor is a slimeball?
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Don't misunderstand – Blago IS a slimeball, but isn't it possible he could do something good? Even for cynical, manipulative reasons?
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I just find it hard to justify Harry Reid standing in the Senate doorway to block Burris while Inhofe, Vitter and others of their ilk sit smugly inside.

OK, "we're left with this question."
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Please, please, for the luvvamike, can't we have our Preview back?

Only on swampland can a senior editor from Harvard be lambasted as a dunce or dismissed as a "God Girl" on the strength of a joke and commenter hubris. Good going people.

Amy Sullivan:
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That's sure a lot of mind-reading in this post.
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Is there any information to be had out there for some intrepid political reporter to discover that might indicate why Roland Burris has had a less-than spotless win track record in Illinois? Might that information have something to do with less-than-pure factors in Illinois pushing back against Burris' clean politics? Or maybe the races in which he ran had more to do with demographics issues?
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After reading your post, I don't know the answer to these questions, and apparently you don't even care to know. Perhaps you might be so good as to provide something more in the way of background and insight than this rather facile cable news-talk segment.
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Thanks in advance for not settling for the least insightful, most easily repeated storylines, Amy Sullivan.

A brilliant strategic political chess move on the part of the Governor whose obvious singular purpose behind his selection is to attempt to create divisive chaos amongst his detractors. This bold move could only have been topped if he had had the audacity to name Representative Jesse Jackson as Senator.

And he likely would have done so if not for realizing that Jackson would have just as likely denounced the Governor for selecting him as practically everyone else is denouncing the Governor's selection of Burris.

Burris is just a sacrificial pawn brilliantly being played by the Governor of Illinois. And as in the case of most pawns black or white, Burris can not and will not accept and realize that he is one until he is no longer on the board of play which will happen much sooner than later.

Amy Sullivan:
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Here's a little more help in understanding the problems of a post like this one (taken from a post of mine up at the Swampland Commenters' Blog):
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This post by Swampland's newest "contributor" Amy Sullivan almost perfectly illustrates the chattering class' inability to distinguish facts from their own imaginations:
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Showing he's still really good at thinking things all the way through, Blago has picked Roland Burris no doubt in part because he thinks Senate Democrats would have a tough time refusing to seat a man who would be the Senate's only African-American member. He's right to think they wouldn't be thrilled about it. But they're even less thrilled about lending any legitimacy to Blago himself or accepting a replacement for Obama who would have an uphill battle retaining the seat in 2010.
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Although Burris was the first African-American elected to statewide office in Illinois as the state's comptroller, he has struggled in campaigns as well, losing races for governor, U.S. Senate, and mayor of Chicago. Even Blago has expressed concerns about Burris' electability. In a 2002 radio interview on V-103's Cliff Kelley Show, after Blagojevich defeated Burris in a primary contest for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, Blago said that the color of Burris' skin "hurt him" at the polls.
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It's a quirky strategy, appointing a candidate you don't think can win. But I'm sure it will turn out just as well as Blago's other creative efforts.

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As I say to Amy Sullivan in my commentary, that sure is a lot of mind reading going on. Does this person truly believe that these simple conjectures are actually verifiable in any way? Yes, if what constitutes "verifiable" in your world is the merely plausible as represented by your colleagues' cocktail party chatter/cable news show round-table.
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What I didn't mention in my comment was the particularly egregious conflation of Burris' gubernatorial primary defeat with "Burris' electability" in general. Let's set aside for a moment an examination of the sheer ludicrousness of Amy Sullivan's quoting Governor Pay-to-Play McConflict-of-Interest in support of any candidates' prospects at the polls. If we look squarely at this post's message, we get to see an incredible sleight-of-hand take place: Burris' defeat in the Illinois Democratic machine's primaries somehow morphs into "electability" in general.
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When Amy Sullivan writes "losing races for governor, U.S. Senate, and mayor of Chicago", she somehow neglects to mention that these were Democratic primaries, and not actual statewide races for these offices between a Republican and a Democrat. Perhaps she doesn't know. I have no idea.
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In the possibility that she doesn't appreciate the difference in Illinois between a Democratic primary and any other race, let's look at who won these primaries, shall we?

From 1979 to 1991, Burris was elected to the office of Comptroller of Illinois. He was the first African American to be elected to a statewide office in the state of Illinois. Burris was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in 1984, losing to Paul Simon who went on to defeat incumbent Senator Charles Percy.
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From 1991 to 1995, he was Attorney General for the State of Illinois, where he supervised over 500 lawyers. There, he was the second African American elected to a state office of Attorney General in the United States.
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In 1994, he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination for Governor of Illinois. While Burris had been favored for much of the primary campaign, he and Cook County Board President Richard Phelan were both defeated by State Comptroller Dawn Clark Netsch, who had a strong late showing in the final weeks of the campaign despite being seen as the underdog. Netsch would go on to defeat the following November against incumbent Republican Governor Jim Edgar in an election where Democrats lost every single race for statewide office.
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In 1995, he ran for mayor of Chicago, losing to incumbent Richard M. Daley. In 1998 and 2002, he again unsuccessfully sought the Democratic Party nomination for Governor of Illinois, running in 2002 against, among others, Rod Blagojevich. In 1998, Burris famously caused a controversy by referring to his Democratic primary opponents -- Jim Burns, Glenn Poshard (who eventually won the nomination) and John Schmidt -- as "nonqualified white boys."[6] While arguably true, the statement was considered racist by many and backfired politically.

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OK now, if Wikipedia has this right, Burris lost the US Senate primary in 1984 to one of the most revered of Illinois' Senators, then won Attorney General over the Republican, then lost a three-way primary for governor in an election in which no Democrat won their election, lost an unwinnable primary to Chicago's reigning Daley Machine heir, then lost another primary to Blagojevich, perhaps because of the racial overtones in his/the campaign (to which the Governor alluded in his radio interview).
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In my mind, none of this speaks to Burris' "electability" whatsoever. I'm from Chicago, and believe me, this track record says a lot more about politics in Illinois over the past few decades to me than it does about Burris' capability of winning that US Senate seat in an upcoming election.
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Beyond even the silly mind-reading parlor tricks on display, Amy Sullivan's post captures the rank ignorance of the storylines upon which our pundit class settles in order to facilitate their own inane readings of our nation's politics. She apparently just couldn't be bothered to consider actual facts and actual history before weighing in with a regurgitation of the Village consensus that Burris shouldn't be capable of winning a contest should his appointment stand.
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None of this is remarkable in any way, apart from that it serves to demonstrate just how little thought, research or context goes into these peoples' formulations of their inane opinions about our politics. Amy Sullivan is not necessarily the worst offender, nor this post the worst example of this tabloid clique's collective guilt, but nevertheless we should be reminded of how much public push-back we need to do on an ongoing basis to correct their ongoing failure.
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Welcome to Swampland, Amy Sullivan.

Sorry, here's the link to that post at Swampland Commenters' Blog.