Politics: May 2009 Archives

After hearing Roland Burris' latest lame defense about why he misled a legislative panel looking into his appointment as Illinois' junior senator, The Hound wishes the Democrat would just go away. Don't make any more pronouncements, don't introduce any legislation in the Senate, don't hold press conferences. Just go away, OK?

Burris no longer, at least in The Hound's eyes, should be given the honor of being called a senator. He's not going to resign and if he is indicted for perjury (a good chance), he will go kicking and screaming. But we shouldn't call him senator. How about Just Roland?

If you missed it, Just Roland contends it wasn't his duty to tell a legislative committee about his conversation with former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's brother if lawmakers
failed to ask the right questions. "You all have got it backwards. It is not upon a person who's testifying to go out of his way on anything. It is the person who
has to ask the questions,'" Burris said.

Now that's one squirmy answer. What happened to Illinois senators who had principle? Like Paul Douglas, Charles Percy, Adlai Stevenson III, Paul Simon, Peter Fitzgerald, Barack Obama? They're gone and we're stuck with this Bozo at least through 2011.

While talking to Rob Blagojevich, Just Roland said he could not do major fund-raising without it looking like was trying buy the appointment, but he promised to "personally do something'' for the former governor. Just Roland did not disclose the call in January when he testified before a special Illinois House committee considering the
governor's impeachment. He revealed it in a later affidavit.

He now blames state lawmakers for not getting the information out of him. "I'm responding to questions. Why should I have to _ in your estimation, in your assessment _ go out of my way to answer questions when I was answering questions that were asked. Why didn't the impeachment committee follow up with the questions to
ask me?'' he told reporters. Huh? What a statesman.

Please, Just Roland, just go away, OK?

..

Observing the squirming accidental Sen. Roland Burris, D-Not Re-elected, has been doing the past few days since a federal judge OK'd the release of a wiretap conversation between the senator and then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich reminded The Hound of the machinations of ancient Rome as described in I, Claudius, the novel by English author Robert Graves. There's some nasty business here.

And, the senator sure is becoming a testy geezer pol as he attacks reporters at every turn. He so fears the Chicago wolfpack that he went out for a two-day swing of downstate Illinois. Included in that was a briefing in Champaign on Wednesday on the National Soybean Research Laboratory. What's he need a briefing for? It's soybeans. We're a farm state dependent a lot on soybeans. Soybeans? Um, good. He's down in Springfield, Danville and Kankakee today.

Watching I, Roland is like watching the bumbling Claudius. Smart, but coming across as a naive bumpkin from downstate Centralia. Reading the transcript of the taped call between Blago and the senator, one has to read between the lines because we're dealing with Illinois pols here.

And, for an attorney, the senator sure doesn't know the law. Like planning to have his attorney funnel a check to Blago. Using a second or third party to channel campaign funds is against state campaign laws. But The Hound has a hard feeling it's also against the law to auction off a Senate seat.

While the senator is spinning the line that the wiretap "exonerates" him, it certainly can cause more trouble. The question reporters should ask I, Roland is if Blago hadn't been busted by the FBI, would there have been a check delivered to his Hairness in consideration for the Senate seat of now-President Obama? And, if so, who would have delivered it , the senator or his attorney. From the wiretrap, it is obvious the senator knows right from wrong and how it would look if it ever got out he was raising money for Rod the Mod.

More important, the senator never mentioned this meaningful conversation to the legislative panel investigating L'Affaire Burris. Will this be more fodder for a charge of perjury being explored by the Sangamon County State's Attorney's office? As The Hound said, this is some nasty business.

Besides, on a day when the president nominates the first Hispanic female to the U.S. Supreme Court, most Chicago TV stations led off with the Burris caper, relegating future supreme Sonia Sotomayor to second banana. Perhaps the president is ready to let the senator twist slowly in the wind --- finally.