Taking the appointment at face value, Roland is well known and liked here in Illinois. He built a long career in politics without hint of scandal, which, as has been documented as nauseum, is not an easy thing to do here. He's a great choice.

Blagojevich is playing a game of Chicken with the Senate here -- daring them to refuse to seat Burris. Interesting...

My guess is that if the guy agrees to be a placeholder and not run again, and he has a clean reputation, the Senate will take him. After all, they have no real grounds not to.

If Quinn and Durbin endorse Burris, I can't imagine the Senate Dems moving to block him.

If you are going to go down in flames might as well take everybody with you.

Blagojevich '12!

Allow me to second DJ's point that Blago is betting that Reid and the rest of the Dem Senators won't have the balls to refuse to seat a black replacement to the One.

And on this point, Blago is absolutely right because as Chocolate Thunder correcly points out, there is no hint of any scandals connected to Burris.

Once the replacement is in, the State Dems will quickly and quietly drop the impeachment hearings for some lame reason, like not wanting to interfere with Fitzpatrick's criminal investigation and things will get back to "normal" in Illinois politics. lol

I would be curious to know if Burris was Blagojevich's pick or did Blagojevich get a "suggestion" from someone else who felt that an idle Senate - for whatever the reason - was not in Illinois' best interest?

Who said that Blago was dumb?

Great...I said something that the moronic chicounsel agrees with. Almost makes me want to reconsider.

DJ - palling around with trolls.

Not by design, Danp, I assure you. :)

Burris is not well respected in Illinois. He is thin-skinned, someone who clings to past slights and resentments, who refuses to shake hands with the general public at public events (strange for a politician), and who built himself a tomb listing his life accomplishments, leaving a blank space for some future honor. Sorry, Roland, it won't be U.S. Senator.

Maybe the operative question is, would it be fair to try to derail Burress just because Blago appointed him? If he is good anyway, and we can find he didn't quid with Blago, why not him? Then people can deal with Blago separately.

I'm from Il. and I'd prefer an election, just to see who comes crawling out.

Didn't Burris accidentally shoot himself in nightclub recently? I would have thought NFL suspension was maybe a liability to getting appointed to the US Senate.

I said a few weeks ago when this whole thing started the if Blagojevich wanted to mess with people he should appoint someone disconnected from the current scandal who would normally sail through with no problems and dare Reid to block block him.

It looks like that is what he is going to do. If Burris gets any kind of backing from the State Democrats and if African American groups get behind him (as he would be the only Black Senator) then things could get real ungly for Reid.

My real question though is; why would Burris accept the nomination in the first place? Does he want to be a Senator so badly he's willing to take the seat under these conditions?

Three weeks ago, every member of the Senate Democratic caucus wrote Blagojevich a letter, urging him not to fill the Senate vacancy, and explaining that the chamber would exercise its constitutional authority and refuse to seat any official the governor appointed.

This statement is false. The statement said that the chamber would exercise its Constitutional responsibility to decide if such a member should be seated. The Supreme Court has already ruled that such a responsibility begins and ends with determining whether the person was lawfully selected and whether they meet the Constitutional qualifications for office -- assuming Blagojevich does, in fact, appoint Burris without first having been removed from office, there is very little for the Senate to decide.

This was, of course, intended to suggest that the Senate might reject such an appointee, but since the Senate clearly has no Constitutional authority to do so, it can't, and the claim that the statement both asserted and promised to use a Constitutional power to reject such an appointee is false.

Good point cmdicely, "never" tell someone what you are going to do in such cases, tell them what you have a right to do (or think you have a right to.) But we know the rightwing and some MSM will use that misworded concept to smear IL Dems as "hypocrite" (and dig them if they don't appoint an African American to the post.)

Does that still stand? Is Burris a respected enough figure that senators may reconsider?
Who would dare a high tech lynching of a black Illinois senator in PC America? After Carole Mosley Braun and Barack Obama, perhaps it should be a permanent black seat, sort of like they do on the Supreme Court with ethnic seats.

Blagojevich represents everything that is crooked politics... and he doesn't show even a hint of remorse