January 7th 2009
Burris Fiasco Doesn’t Deter Pinky
H
arry Reid is undeterred. He told Politico he expects to serve as Senate Majority Leader until at least 2015 (he’s up for reelection in 2010, but that’s not fazing him). And he expects to be controversial the whole time, telling Politico his Senate won’t be a rubber stamp for Barack Obama because he doesn’t believe in an over-powerful executive branch.
How about an over-powerful senate? The constitution makes it clear that Roland Burris should be seated as Illinois’ junior senator, but Reid, Orval Faubus-like, is standing in the Senate door, denying him access.
What a dumb move. Without Reid, the Republicans would have had to fight Burris in order to keep the Democratic corruption ball in the air and push for a special election, but now they can sit back and talk about what a shame it is that Reid won’t let a qualified man who would be the Senate’s only black member serve.
It follows a string of dumb Dem moves: They allowed Blagojevich to become governor, not being able to smell a rat because of the overwhelming rat odors that permeates the back rooms of Illinois. They feared a special election. They refused to work with Blagojevich on the Senatorial nomination (a no brainer strategy – how could they have missed that?). And now the leader of the Senate is utterly mishandling Burris by standing on the wrong side of the constitution, and the wrong side of the Congressional Black Caucus.
No matter. Harry is confident all his multitude of leadership failures won’t keep him from leading the Senate for another seven years. I hope he’s right. The Senate is the only game in town now, and we need every advantage we can get.
Another Politico report shows Reid sinking deeper into the Burris swamp. He and Illinois’ senior senator, Turban Durbin, are meeting with Burris today to try to work something out, and all indications are they’re manipulating like crazy. They’ll seat him if he promises not to run in 2010. They’ll seat him if Illinois Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn (an old white guy) endorses him. They’ll seat him if Quinn violates the constitution and appoints him.
None of these options is legal, none treat Burris as anything but a second-class railroad car porter, and all of them show Reid’s political insensitivity, as does this:
“What should happen, Blagojevich — if he really cared about his state and cared about Mr. Burris — should just step down and let Quinn do what Quinn would do,” said Reid, who has spoken to Quinn in recent days. “Whoever Quinn appointed, unless there were something I don’t understand, I just think anybody that he suggested … they’d all be fine.”
Blogojevich isn’t going to just step down, and Reid calling for it just makes the senate leader look desperate. And excuse me for just assuming that Pat Quinn, who after all was able to elevate himself to the second highest seat in Illinois, isn’t exactly squeaky clean himself.
Worse, Reid crossed swords with a strong potential opponent for Senate leadership, Dianne Feinstein. Feinstein suggested that Democratic leaders – i.e., Reid – would be undercutting gubernatorial appointments everywhere if they barred Roland Burris. That’s legit, but here’s Reid’s response:
That’s not valid, her statement. I told her that. OK?
Not OK. But you just keep playing the fool and splitting your party, Harry … but not too much, OK? We need you in as leader.
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