It’s obvious what Blago is trying to do here: Pretend nothing has happened. All is as it was. He is simply proceeding with his ordinary constitutional duty to appoint a replacement for Obama.
I recall a scene from the 1967 comedy A Guide for the Married Man, where Robert Morse gives Walter Matthau lessons in getting away with adultery. One important rule: “Deny everything! Deny, deny, deny!” “But what if she actually sees . . .?” “Deny!” “But what if she . . .?” “Deny!” Morse proceeds to tell a story of a friend of his.
We cut to a scene with different characters. We see a wife walking in on her husband and some floozy. She’s astonished and outraged: “Harry, what are you doing?!” And he calmly says, “What?” She keeps protesting and he keeps saying, “What?” Like, “What are you talking about?” This continues while the floozy gets dressed, he kisses her goodbye and she leaves. Husband settles into his easy chair and starts to read the paper. Wife says, “But I just saw you and her . . .” “What?” Finally, with an utterly baffled look on her face, she says, “Harry?” “What?” “What would you like for dinner?”
Almost never works IRL, I’m sure, but it sounds just like the angle Blago is playing.
“Screw the taint implications”? And how exactly do you suggest that be done? Just tell everybody, “Hey, ignore all that stuff about this Senate seat appointment being up for sale to the highest bidder.” All the news reports, judicial filings, late-night comedy routines and spoof e-Bay auctions will poof disappear from public consciousness. Blank slate, just go on, business as usual–well, maybe not that–but nothing to see here, tra la la la la la la.
Won’t ever happen, even on planet Illinois. Blags has made such a spectacular, stinking mess that politicians with even rudimentary survival instincts are running like hell to avoid the back-splash. The Senate, quite rightly IMO, stated they would not accept anyone Blags appointed. What a frickin’ nightmare: seat a possible high bidder into the high house of Congress, then drag the country through an investigation to see if the sucker should be ejected after Blago’s corruption trial. Even if Blago magically evades the silver bullet, there’s no way any appointee of his–“good man” or not–will have the slightest credibility.
The US Senate wants no trash from this tawdry drama dumped into their august aisles, which actually shows rare good sense on their part. Okay, so it’s mostly cowardice but they’re right to consider the source of the appointment hopelessly compromised. I hope they summarily refuse to seat Burris, and anyone else this piece of trash governor throws out as a diversion.
You don’t see that as a set up? Having Rush there as a proxy to deliver those lines? Well, having seen how Balgs has operated these last few years I am sure it was planned that way by Blags. He got someone else to deliver the “senate is racist if they don’t seat Burris” line to make the situation as difficult as possible.
So, yes, Blags didn’t say it directly, but he certainly set the table so it would play out that way. He knew exactly what he was doing and coldly calculated the scenario.
The taint is NOT on Burris. Be happy that the ONLY guy who could, constitutionally, make the appointment made a good choice and don’t tar Burris with the same brush.
On what grounds can they do that?
Fuck your self-righteousness. We need a senator watching our interests and I don’t want to wait until Blago fights his impeachment until its inevitable conclusion. And I CERTAINLY don’t want to risk a Democratic seat on special vote. At least this fixes that, and, despite the Senate’s chest thumping, I doubt they will refuse to seat a constitutionally-appointed senator.
When this story aired on the news last night, the first thing i thought was:
I know precisely nothing about this Burris guy, but i have to seriously question the political acumen of someone who would accept an appointment from Blagojevich right now.
Then you should amend your OP, so that instead of saying this…
Just when I think I’ve seen it all, Rottney Blags plays the race card…you should say something more like this…
Just when I thought he couldn’t be more brilliantly attuned, Governor Blagojevich masterminded and executed a conspiracy with two well credentialed Illinois African American politicians, both of whom he duped into carrying out his plan to play the race card on his behalf, a move so choreographed that he tricked one of them into calling the other on stage to warn Congress not to be perceived as hanging and lynching a black man by blocking his Senate seat. This worked to the Governor’s advantage because now everyone is praising him as a thoughtful leader and brilliant strategist.
Constitutionally, the choice is actually up to the Illinois legislature, which has delegated the power of temporary appointment to the governor’s office. They could have removed that power through statute and waited for a special election to fill the seat, but I don’t think anybody actually expected him to make an appointment.
There is no way the Senate can “refuse to seat him.” The Senate can only determine whether he meets the constitutional requirements. He does. The House tried that With Adam Clayton Powell, and the courts sided with Powell. The Senate doesn’t get to negate a state’s choice for Senator.
No, it’s simpler. Blago played the race card. He put Burris on the table. Rush simply announced it, and made it explicit. Most times when someone “plays a race card”, it’s done more subtly and deniably. This time, Blago had a town crier.
Bobby Rush isn’t the only one who says that seat has to go to a black person. I’ve heard a number of Dem pundits say so. Sounds like Conventional Wisdom to me. How can you accuse him of playing the race card when every card in the deck is black?
The nice black man gave Blago $11,000?
Shame on him! I say everyone who ever contributed or supported Blago in any way should be removed from office.
Innocent until proven guilty?
Of course it doesn’t apply to who the Senate seats or who Illinois impeaches. They should go after all the sleaze though instead of lynching Blago just because he embarrases them.
I have to agree with this view of it. Especially in light of Blago having tried to get another black man, Rep. Davis, to take the appointment before asking Burris, it seems to me that the race card was a conscious part of the calculations leading to this.
I wonder: Is Byron Rush a kneejerk race-card-puller? If so, then I’d suspect that Blago was counting on him to provide the desired level of inflammatory blather. It doesn’t take brilliant maneuvering and trickery to manipulate people into playing the game for you if you know which buttons to push. For Burris, it’s ego and ambition; for Rush, it’s grievance politics, or so it seems to me.
I don’t think Blago did this to be perceived as a thoughtful leader or anything along those lines – well, he may well see himself as that, but my gut feeling based on all that I’ve read about this whole sorry mess is that he’s being a gigantic asshole because he enjoys being a gigantic asshole.
But I was thinking more along the lines of “Wily E Coyote, Super Genius” smart. Just like the coyote, he is deploying the best weapons he has. But, just like the coyote, the whole thing will blow up in his face in the end.
It has always been the case that the replacement would be black. Obama was the only black Senator, and thus all the pundits expected a black replacement. That’s not something Blagojevich conceived.
A person can play the race card without having to say certain magic words, such as “lynch” or “black” or “bigot.”
After the news conference, on his way out the door, Blagojevich picked up Rush’s phrase and said, “Feel free to castigate the appointer, but don’t lynch the appointor.” I think it was clear he meant don’t lynch the appointee _ Burris.
This continues while the floozy gets dressed, he kisses her goodbye and she leaves. Husband settles into his easy chair and starts to read the paper. Wife says, “But I just saw you and her . . .” “What?” Finally, with an utterly baffled look on her face, she says, “Harry?” “What?” “What would you like for dinner?”
