Just seat Burris, already

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I believe that Harry Reid will be making a stupid and avoidable error if he refuses to seat former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris in the U.S. Senate Tuesday. There are two problems:

1. Burris is the official appointee to Obama's vacant Senate seat as selected by the duly elected Governor of Illinois. The U.S. Senate does not have the power to usurp the executive authority of a state governor irrespective of how crooked or insane he is accused of being. Rod Blagojevich has not been impeached, indicted, or convicted.

2. By pulling a stunt like barring Burris from the Senate, Reid and his Democratic supporters forfeit any moral high ground they may have in the face of Republican efforts to block Al Franken from taking his seat.

3. Burris is famous in Illinois only for having been the state's first African American Attorney General and for not having been accused of political corruption. But as a U.S. Senate candidate in 2010, first in a Democratic primary election, Burris will have his tailbone handed to him by current Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan or just about anyone else with statewide name recognition this side of Lieutenant Governor and professional bozo Pat Quinn. No one in the Illinois Democratic Party is interested in sending a 70-year-old freshman to the Senate who will achieve meaningful seniority for the state about the time his last artery hardens, so that makes Burris an excellent 2-year caretaker for the seat.

So just seat Burris, already. It's not up to the Senate President to choose between tainted and untainted Senators when allocating the deck chairs. Burris would be harmless to the Democrats during a short term in the Senate. He would be totally out of his league as a Senate freshman, and therefore totally dependent on direction from senior Senator Dick Durbin, not to mention Rahm Emanuel and President Obama. Therefore, Burris presents no significant political problem either for the statewide Democratic Party or for the Obama administration. The voters of Illinois can purge the taint themselves, so to speak, in the senatorial elections of 2010.

Unfortunately for Burris on a personal level, he sort of doofed into this appointment, and he hasn't handled it with the acumen or grace of a real professional. Burris could have capped off his career with a noble gesture of public service by declaring that he'd accept the Blagojevich appointment reluctantly, and only to ensure that Illinois has full representation in the U.S. Senate during this difficult time; and that he would not seek permanent election to the post in 2010. Opportunity: blown. Advantage: taint. Oh: well.

Meanwhile, could we have DHS check the Senate plumbing system to determine whether someone is putting stupid pills into Harry Reid's water cooler?

Land of Lincoln sanity checks

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Governor Blagojevich returned to "business as usual" today, which for him is the administrative equivalent of spraying a tommy gun inside the capital rotunda hollering "Made it, Ma! Top of the world!" Meanwhile, most state officials are making serious noises about meeting to develop a framework to draft a resolution calling for the study of possibly impeaching our modern day Baby Face Nelson. Our remaining U.S. Senator, Dick Durbin, pulled a blindingly stupid PR stunt on Tuesday when he immediately called for a special election to fill Obama's vacant Senate seat. Dumb idea: the next Congress will have been in session for months by the time a special election is set up and concluded. Nobody even knows how one would be administered in Illinois under current circumstances. And a special election would open the seat to being won by any Republican skilled enough to play the backlash card of downstate resentment of corrupt city slickers. Anybody who thinks that couldn't happen is a fool: the Land of Lincoln is not as "blue" as celebrity journalists seem to think. If I were Obama, I'd be tempted to have Durbin skinned with poultry shears for throwing a special election on the table. Bonehead.

And Armageddon must be near: I agree with a Republican. Former governor Jim Edgar said on public radio Wednesday morning that he thinks a special election is a bad idea because it would get partisanship all stirred up at a time when we need two U.S. Senators in Washington. He also suggested that Blagojevich's successor appoint a panel to help select the new senate nominee. That could work, but I don't think it's necessary: the appointment power lies with whomever is governor or acting governor.

I figured that the legislature could have Blagojevich impeached by Christmas if there was a will to do it, but serious observers seem to think that impeachment requires hard evidence of criminality and a reasonable-doubt standard for guilt. I doubt it. They don't have to impeach Blagojevich for bribery: lawyers can figure it out. For example, if Blagojevich were insane enough to appoint someone to the seat, I believe he would be violating at least the spirit of Illinois state ethics laws in the conflict-of-interest arena. [Allow me to interject that anyone accepting a Senate appointment by Blagojevich now would be an imbecile... unless Blago pulled the supreme jiu jutsu move of appointing an Republican to the seat. Think about it. You heard it here first.]

The Attorney General, Lisa Madigan, can appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court to remove a governor who is incapable of performing his duties. Madigan has indicated that she is smart enough to wait for awhile, though, necessarily letting state government twist in the wind long enough so even a mischevous Republican justice might think twice about voting against a removal petition. (The Supreme Court decision must be unanimous.) Normally, I would have thought Madigan would have been a slam-dunk appointment to the Senate seat. But under these circumstances, and given her likely role as Blagojevich's putative executioner, the Lieutenant Governor might find it awkward to be seen as "rewarding" her for the kill.

I know that people smarter than me don't believe this is a serious danger, but he longer chaos persists in Illinois government, the better it is for Republicans here. At the state level, Illinois Republicans are pathetic: divided, devoid of viable leaders, and they stand for nothing except fueling resentment against Chicago. But nothing unites Republicans like chaos.

And it's also better for the national Republican Party: without a Democrat in Obama's seat by January, the new President has one less vote to beat down the twin menace of Mitch McConnell and "Diaper" Dave Vitter.

Editor's note: the illustration of James Cagney from White Heat is used above solely for nonprofit education and research purposes, and this fair use is believed not to diminish the commercial value of the image to the copyright holder.

Blago blogging

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I apologize if the title of this post isn't original to you. But it's new to me as of 21:08 CST.

It would be naive to think that a state governor has never tried to play high-stakes tit-for-tat with a Senate seat appointment. Wouldn't it? But what are we to think, really, of a state governor --- under federal investigation for at least 3 years with "imminent indictment" rumors swirling around the state for several months?

Stupid? I know it's "cute" to say so, and Blago may barely scrape into three digits, IQ-wise. But his reported behavior really can't satisfactorily be explained away that easily. Chutzpah may get a little closer to serving as a feasible explanation, if that word encompasses epic-scale obliviousness to the consequences of planning a criminal conspiracy without using code words and euphemisms. But what could account for such an Olympian disconnect from reality?

If Blago is really guilty of trying to shake down the President elect and even possibly Warren Buffett, then it's clear to me that he's criminally insane. The guy belongs in Arkham Asylum.

In TPM's fantasy movie about Blago, David Kurtz would cast Steve Carrell on the basis of appearance and the ability to portray cluelessness. But I'd recommend Michael Badalucco, who portrayed Baby Face Nelson in O Brother Where Art Thou. Badalucco would be perfect: more babyfaced than the gangster, like Blago; nuts the size of coffee cans, acting-wise; and a peerless performance as a bipolar criminal thrill-seeker. The photo above is the historical George "Baby Face" Nelson. I curse the World Wide Web for not having a readily available picture of Badalucco strutting his stuff with speeding sedans, tommy guns, and dairy cows.