Illinois Governor Rod R. Blagojevich is a sly fox. A few weeks ago, everyone in the Democratic leadership from the President-elect on down vowed they would not seat any Senator nominated by Blagojevich. But now, that's changed.
Reid would not say outright that Burris would not be seated and noted there was "always room to negotiate."
And the Senior Senator from Illinois, and #2 Democrat in the Senate hedges his bet by saying
What changed? Blagojevich nominated a Black man and at the very press conference in which he did so, he played the race card by proxy.
Only a Democrat-insider, with megalomaniacal desire to go nuclear could have turned the tables. And in Blagojevich, you have just such a megalomaniac.
As an insider, he knew just how Democrats would respond to appointing a Black man. And he was right.
Democrats first said they would stand on principle; the principle that any nominee appointed by Blagojevich would be tainted. But principle will not be able to withstand racial politics.
Now it seems pretty clear to me that since the Illinois Legislature procrastinated impeachment hearings that could have removed the Governor from office before he could make such a move, Democrats are going to have to play a losing hand.
It's a losing hand because there appears to be no legal constitutional ground for not seating Burris. Blagojevich was governor at the time of the appointment. The governor has the right to appoint Senator Obama's successor, and there does not at the time of this writing appear to be anything untoward about the appointment. But since Democrats made the hardline statment, are now wavering, and will likely have to seat him anyway, it's not going to be good for the Democratic Brand.
And that Brand continues to take a beating.
Prolonging the Blagojevich story is not going to help.
