How come, if we all agreed at the time that it was laughable racial blackmail (“Are you white men really gonna keep a black man from joining your exclusive club?”) that got the spineless Senators to change their stance on accepting Burris, they couldn’t appeal to the general populace in refuting that idiotic logic?
Are we really that much sharper than the general populace?
The senators talked to their lawyers, and then thought (deep down in that secret place where they don’t allow anyone else) about their own actual fitness to hold their seat , and caved. Most of them know they are no more or less morally fit than he is, and caving was an acknowledgement of that.
I recall that Obama called Durbin and Reid to his office and politely asked them to drop their objections and seat Burris to make the whole thing go away.
This was after his strongly hinted statements that the Senate shouldn’t seat any Blago appointment.
To another poster: I think the GOP had everything to gain here. By putting aside partisan politics and standing up for what was right, they could have scored some major points…
Except that, from what we’ve seen so far, that section of their playbook has been ripped out, folded, spindled and mutilated, trampled into decaying yak excrement, doused with anthrax-laced PCBs, and set on fire.
There are raises and then there are bankers bonuses. Billion dollar grabs of the stimulus when they are responsible for the mess, does paint them with a much uglier brush.
And as a bonus for the Democrats, getting rid of Burris, with Franken still unseated, lowers the total needed for cloture to 59, thus not changing the outcome of filibusters.
If I knew how to disarm it safely, I’d have already done so. The owner’s manual is in Kryptonese, for Thor’s sake. We’re just lucky I only destroyed one planet while I was setting the damn thing up.
Nah. I think it’s best left armed. Periodically one of you guys thinks about killing me when I take a joke too long, and it’s good that y’all have a reason to throw down the axe and say, “Damn it!”