It's Not Like Garfield Goose Is Still Around to Do It

It seems to me that the political powers that be are giving Blogo the Gov too much power. By saying that they will not confirm any nominee of Gov. Blogojevitch no matter what, cross their hearts, hope to die, the Senate, Attorney General and whoever is allowing Rod to burn through a bunch of perfectly qualified candidates for no particular reason other than to avoid some appearance of impropriety. But the practical effect is that Blogo can now burn through thirty or forty candidates without breaking a sweat. Anyone from Jesse Jackson, Jr. to Richard Daley to whoever else... Gone, because God forbid we should let Blogojevitch pick a senator. It's pretty insane.

I mean, my firt thought was that if Rod Blogojevitch wanted to be a mean-spirited prick, he'd start nominated every qualified candidate he could find, just to burn them for the real process. Then I thought, "If?" Blogojevitch has definitely proven that he is kind of a mean-spirited prick. Today he announced one Roland Burris as his nomineee. Burris is someone I don't know a lot about other than he is a career politico who has a long track record of public service and failed attempts to run for office. My reaction: fine. He appears to be genuinely committed to public service. He has proven he cannot win the election to keep the seat, but he can probably do the job of senator well. And if they confirm him, it solves the problem. You don't have to worry about what to do with the senate seat. You no longer have the prospect of drawn out fight about who gets to pick. And most importantly, Burris appears to be about as qualified anyone else. Why just reject him because Blagojevitch picked him? He was Attorney General of Illinois for four years. He was state comptroller. He has, therefore, managed to serve in Illinois government for several years without getting indicted.

He strikes me, bluntly, as a trial balloon. He is not a sexy choice. He is politcally connected and qualified enough to be a reasonable choice on his own. I would not be surprised if Blagojevitch nominated him just to see if the senate and the attorney general were actually going jerk their knees into their jaws without considering his pick. I say they should take those bullets out of the gun. Unless there is some specific reason that Burris is actually, in fact, unqualified to be a Senator from Illinois, they should let him be the Senator from Illinois. He has repeatedly proven he cannot win a popular election, so you only have to worry for a couple more years, and then the people of Illinois can pcik someone.

And more important, as a Hoosier who gets Chicago news, I won't have to listen to news about it for several months.