That’s Senator Burris to You, Bub

		<a href='http://ads.truthdig.com/banners/www/delivery/ck.php?n=a9cd87eb&cb=797175241' target='_blank'><img src='http://ads.truthdig.com/banners/www/delivery/avw.php?zoneid=1&cb=797175241&n=a9cd87eb' border='0' alt='' /></a>	February 12, 2012 Log in / Register
			Text Size

Past Events Upcoming Events

Frightening Charts From the Senate Inequality Hearing

Morris Berman and the Decline of America

More From Chris Hedges on Black Bloc

Perfection

Will Mortgage Settlement Avoid Repeating Obama’s Foreclosure Failures?

Will Mortgage Settlement Avoid Repeating Obama’s Foreclosure Failures?
By Paul Kiel, ProPublica

The Right’s Boon in Knox v. SEIU
By Bill Blum

Truthdigger of the Week: 9th Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt

Romney’s Overriding Ambition
By Eugene Robinson

Critical, Reluctant and Desperate

Frightening Charts From the Senate Inequality Hearing

Arab League Calls for U.N. Mission in Syria

More Senior Journalists of Murdoch’s Sun Arrested

Syrian General Killed by Gunmen in Damascus

China Jails Dissident for Poem Sent Over Internet

‘Left, Right & Center’: Birth Control Concession

Contraception and Campaign 2012

Morris Berman and the Decline of America

O’Reilly Defends DeGeneres, Ellen Chimes In

Tumbrils and the English Language

‘Crazy Horse’: A Study in Erotic Abstraction
By Richard Schickel

Political Divide
By Thomas Byrne Edsall

And Now, This Presidential Appraisal From Scarlett Johansson

The Questions Education Reformers Aren’t Asking

Dig led by Mike Rose

Financial Meltdown 101

A Dig compiled by the editors of Truthdig

The Cross and the Lynching Tree

By James H. Cone

That’s Senator Burris to You, Bub

AP photo / Charles Dharapak

Although a majority of his state’s voters are opposed to his appointment (according to a recent poll), Roland Burris will be seated as the junior senator from Illinois. Senate Democrats had promised not to seat Burris but, true to tradition, promptly caved.

BBC:

Roland Burris will be allowed to take up Barack Obama’s vacant US Senate seat, officials have announced.

Senate leaders had tried to block Mr Burris’s membership, because he was appointed by scandal-hit Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich.

But Mr Burris’s credentials have now been verified to the satisfaction of the senate leadership.

Read more

More Below the Ad

Advertisement

TAGS: appointment blagojevich burris congress democrats governor illinois obama politics poll reid senate

Related Entries

February 11, 2012 Will Mortgage Settlement Avoid Repeating Obama�s Foreclosure Failures?
February 10, 2012 Romney�s Overriding Ambition
February 10, 2012 Flock This Way
February 9, 2012 Elections Are for Suckers
February 9, 2012 Clint, Rick and the Limits of Pessimism

Email to a friend

Get truth delivered to
your inbox every week.

Previous item: Obama Says He'll Spend Some Bailout Money on Homeowners

Next item: This Common-Sense Solution Brought to You by the 19th Century

Comments

Are you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig.

By Lawrence Oswald, January 13, 2009 at 11:32 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

The blunder Reid and his guys made was not that they “caved” but that they took a premature and foolish anti-Blagojevich stand that they could not enforce. They tried to FORCE him to resign after the “effin” tapes were quoted. Blago took the right hook from ex-boxer Reid and came back with a left jab. Burris.

It was Blagojevich’s job to appoint the replacement and he emphasized that he was not folding by making that appointment. Once the Governor did that Reid was screwed. But the error was the original “Gotta resign” ultimatum. Actually I think Senators Reid and Durbin folded their hand with style and grace, saying what a charming guy Burris is.

Report this

By dihey, January 13, 2009 at 5:21 am Link to this comment

The seating of Mr. Burris is not a victory for Blago nor is it a victory for Mr. Burris but it is a victory (of sorts)for our Constitutional law because that document does not contain the phrase “tainted appointment” nor does it require the Illinois Secretary of State to sign off on the appointment. When Burris is seated, the Democratic Party, all Democratic Senators, Rahm Emanuel and Mr. Coward-in-Chief will still have eggs all over their faces.

Report this