Its make up your own state and federal constitutions week and the United Senate are the only ones invited. Roland Burris was announced last week as Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s pick to replace outgoing senator, and president-elect Obama. About three weeks ago, FBI tapes were publicized of Blagojevich attempting to sell the seat to the highest bidder. The Illinois legislature will likely vote on whether he should be impeached within the next month, and it is believed that he will in fact be impeached.
Thus, the governor, who oddly maintains his innocence against undeniable evidence, wisely, I think, decided to appoint Roland Burris as Obama’s replacement. For one, Burris is not one of the five people Blagojevich had mentioned in the FBI tapes as possible candidates (it is important to note that none of these individuals are yet implicated with any illegal activity.). Secondly, Blagojevich played the most indicting political card of the radical left: Race. Burris is Black; he would be the only Black senator (in fact filling the seat vacated by the first Black president, Barak Obama); therefore, if the senate refuses him, they’re just a bunch of racists!
Leftists attacking other leftists as racists has become the gift that keeps on giving. For decades the radical leftwing of the Democratic party, which has now become the overwhelming majority of the party, has branded, slandered and defamed just about everyone who dissents with their disturbed world view by calling them racists whenever the time becomes fit. But ever since Barak Obama became a national figure, that wing has begun to eat itself alive. Hillary Clinton was attacked by Jeremiah Wright because she didn’t know what it was like to be called a “N*****.” It’s true, and many have suggested she cut the legs off the pantsuits and shake that booty in the new 50 cent video “Glory, glory, we shall overcome, I have a dream N*****.” Then she’ll know what the struggle is about. She was taken to town by what was once her husband’s news media for simply alluding to Robert F Kennedy’s assassination on the 40th anniversary of that event. Was she crytpcailly calling for Obama’s assassination? Racist!
Now senate majority leader Harry Reid is the slave master célèbre. I joke, though in honesty I don’t for a minute think that Reid or the other Democratic senators trying to bar Burris are doing so out of racial hostility. That’s preposterous. Clearly he is simply an inept buffoon who is being forced to eat his own foot for his reactionary declaration that he would refuse any Blagojevich appointee. Rather than wait and see, he decided to come out swinging in the dark hoping to protect Obama’s “pristine” image. After all, this was Obama’s seat and Obama’s state, and a governor who Obama campaigned for. Obama too joined Reid’s call to refuse any appointee. In retrospect, they were probably counting on the governor’s resignation. I mean, have you heard these tapes? What they didn’t count on was Blagojevich’s actually making, not a just an appointment, but an offer they can’t refuse. Well, at least without being called racist.
But, from where in the U.S. or the Illinois constitution did the senate majority leader ever derive the power to refuse an appointment simply because it is made by someone under investigation? Again, Blagojevich is undoubtedly guilty of some kind of corruption. That’s not an allegation I would make lightly, and the FBI and Illinois senate needs to finish their work. But the FBI tapes are a rather transparent indicator of the man’s ethics. Nevertheless, he is the governor of Illinois, and it his constitutional right and obligation to appoint Obama’s successor. The Democratic Party opted out of holding a special election in Illinois to fill Obama’s seat, for fear of losing it. Now that it’s too late, they want the election.
This is all because Harry Reid, Barak Obama, Nancy Pelosi “and-the-rest” decided to go shooting their mouths off about not accepting any appointees by the governor. Even Senator Feinstein hopped off the bandwagon today calling for Burris to be seated. Imagine if 10 years ago (just two weeks ago, actually) senate Republicans decided to refuse to consider passing any Clinton appointees to ambassadorships or judicial offices on the grounds that HE, not the appointee, was under investigation for impeachment – let alone for the whole two years after he had been impeached. It’s a preposterous argument with no legal footing.
While it is in the senate’s discretion to refuse incoming members based on the constitutional provision that “Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members” there is no reason to not seat Burris: Burris is not under investigation for anything. The senate’s refusal to seat Burris on the grounds that the governor of Illinois is under investigation for impeachment is a nonsensical as well as dangerous legal precedent.
What makes the matter more outrageous, is that after effectively stealing a senate seat in Minnesota by magically creating some 700 new ballots – many from precincts where too many ballots now exist by some wondrous, serendipitous turn of the “recounting” process – Al Franken has declared himself the winner after certification. No, not that kind of certification, (though we’ve all been pretty certain for some time) but rather the Minnesota secretary of state has called it. Senator Coleman has filed a lawsuit, and under state law no one can be sworn in until such an election challenge is settled. Still, Chuck Schumer and other Democratic senators who are refusing Burris are speaking out in Franken’s support. Forget that Franken is out of his mind and probably shouldn’t own shoe laces, let alone be sworn into the U.S. senate….. Hm… no, maybe he should have shoe laces…. Nevermind.
So Franken who may actually be implicated with illegal activities surrounding tampering with election results should be declared winner in Minnesota. But Burris who has been implicated with no crimes and was legally appointed to his seat is being refused. Figure that out.