There is little legal justification for the Democrats to stop Roland Burris from taking Barack Obama’s Senate seat.
Harry Reid and the Dems might not admit it, but they have no legal recourse for preempting his ascension to the post, even with all the ongoing corruption probes circling Rod Blagojevich’s gubernatorial head like political vultures conspicuously biding their time before a swoop. They can vote him out, but they probably can’t block his entry.
But just because there’s nothing technically illegal about the nomination (and Burris isn’t one of the people invoked as part of that alleged “pay-to-play” scheme) doesn’t mean that Burris should have accepted it. In fact, I’m shocked that he did.
Who wants to be such an obvious political football for a desperately flung Hail Mary?
Talk about playing “the race card.” Blagojevich looks like the worst kind of cynic in this scenario: someone willing to do anything to save his political life, even if it threatens to spin his party into complete disarray. If he’s going down, he’s going to be taking some other folks with him.
It should give us all pause, as Americans, to ponder the fact that Obama is the only African-American in the Senate right now. Indeed, the same charismatic exceptionalism that catapulted him to the White House probably helps explain his equally against-the-odds election to the Senate — along with a perfect storm of bad news on the Republican side of that senatorial race, including a bounced incumbent and a carpet-bagging opponent, the differently charismatic Alan Keyes, who (if I’m remembering correctly) hummed Negro Spirituals on the campaign trail as a nod to his own racial authenticity vis-à-vis Obama’s implicit illegitimacy.
Blagojevich has claimed that Harry Reid tried to dissuade him from nominating an African-American to the post, supposedly fearing that such a move might just increase the chances of the Dems losing that already vulnerable seat in 2010. Reid denies that completely. Even so, we should be clear about a few things:
First, any alleged fear about another African-American (say, Representative Jesse Jackson Jr.) not necessarily possessing the kind of singular charisma required to overcome the political liabilities of blackness in contemporary America is a clear recognition of the extent to which an Obama presidency hasn’t simply ushered in the dawning of a new day in electoral politics, at least not in one fell swoop.
Second, the Senate’s spectacular lack of diversity doesn’t give Burris license to imply that any hesitation to accept Blagojevich’s appointment of an African-American might reek of racism to some voters. If so, the entire Senatorial chamber should already be giving off that aroma.
If Blagojevich is trying to “play the race card” to save his political life, Burris is dealing from the same deck. And they both should know better.
So, I’m surprised that Burris accepted the tainted offer. But to make matters worse, he’s also invoking the specter of race/racism in ways that turn those reasonable rubrics into purloined letters, the accusatory equivalent of crocodile tears.
