Comments on: Burris: Why Not Withhold Committee Assignments?

By: readerOfTeaLeaves

readerOfTeaLeaves — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 01:00:10 +0000

legality is being confused with legitimacy. in a just society legality would be a necessary, but not sufficient condition of legitimacy.

Bingo!!!!!!!

By: Palli

Palli — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 13:34:52 +0000

It’s good morning all around…after last night’s discussion I had another Cheney destruction dream…
We are all so mad about what has happened to our country, It is so evident in our exchanges over Blagojevich.
Governor Blagojevich is that traitor in our midst to the ideals we want to see again in all our public actions. He was exposed to the larger world at just the moment when we most needed to trust politicians presumably on our “side”, the rebuilding one. But we have been gravely disappointed. well… This won’t be the last time. Charletons are everywhere.
Our job now is to get our Senators all working for the nation, listening and discussing intelligent ideas and making thoughtful considered decisions. Burris should know that- whatever questionable circumstances brought him to the Senate -he is expected to contribute to work at hand, the un-doing and the re-doing and the new birthing of a just society. All else is obstructionism and it is not democratic…with a very small d, we are so young at this.

By: RAMA

RAMA — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 13:08:49 +0000

Burris has become a sort of Lar “America First” Daley politician in Illinois, a man whose opinion of himself is as big as all outdoors. Just ask him; he’ll be happy to expound on himself—grandly speaking in the third person. That he would suggest he be appointed U.S. Senator, with a publicly funded office, staff, and all the perks to go with it, while not actually doing any actual legislative work, ought to suit him right down to the ground.

This mess is the fault of the Illinois General Assembly and its Blago enablers, who should have impeached him two years ago. But his highly placed enablers apparently wanted to keep their personal gravy trains chugging along.

Both Burris and Bobby Rush forcefully, and correctly, called for Blago to resign and strongly criticized him when his arrest was announced. Now they’re singing a completely different tune, and so you will forgive us Illinoisians if we wonder what they’re getting for their change of heart. Mike Royko was only half kidding when he suggested Chicago change its motto to “Where’s Mine?” Now it looks like it could be extended to cover the whole state.

By: selise

selise — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 12:54:58 +0000

finally, i’m not here to defend reid. the question i came to ask is why aren’t we asking what the voters of illinois are entitled to? why aren’t we advocating on their behalf? why aren’t we calling for burris to withdraw or stepdown (depending on how you see the current situation)?

By: selise

selise — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 12:48:34 +0000

You can’t just take something away from somebody because you think the person may have acquired it wrongly, not without getting law enforcement involved.

ah, i’ve been thinking that the senate seat actually belongs to the people of illinois - that it is not the property, as we understand property rights, of a politician.

By: selise

selise — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 12:46:17 +0000

So any attempt by Reid to exclude Burris, even though many people in IL and elsewhere consider Burris’ appointment politically illegitimate, would be legally illegitimate. Essentially, it would be an extra-legal political power grab.

is what reid is doing actually illegal? seriously - i’ve been asking that question and no one before has told me that it is. and if it is, is there any reason to think the courts won’t slap him down?

By: freepatriot

freepatriot — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 09:14:05 +0000

I just feel sorry for all the poor pixels who had to give their lives to sum up blagoff’s greed and stupidity

By: Hmmm

Hmmm — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 09:11:52 +0000

Well, there’s not just that, it also puts them down another man, and sets up the not-seating of Al Franken rather nicely. So it’s a 3-fer really.

By: joshuanoyes

joshuanoyes — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 08:21:52 +0000

this guy was appointed legally right?

he’s a senator right?

why the dems would take cues on how to handle this from republicans (deny committees) is confounding

this is chris matthews territory

By: prostratedragon

prostratedragon — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 08:12:57 +0000

Quite so. I find the evident preference of our political class for scandal games and the like has really soured me on social pressures as control mechanisms. I realize that in the present matter there is no set alternative procedure that governs the behavior of others regarding an appointment that the Senate would wish not be made. But then, the same lack of procedure also raises the question whether the Senate should act, socially or otherwise, on its unguided will, since that’s about all that’s left after a concession that the appointment is legitimate. To compare to JoeLie, the standards for minimal partisan decency in a Senator who already sits as a member of a party caucus would seem to be far better established by practice than the standards of acceptability of an appointee with respect to criteria set by the incumbents of the Senate and caucus.

Actually, if Burris’ nasty streak were as wide as mine, he might have taken the appointment just to serve the crow to those who thought they could game their way out of this situation in ways that, from this perspective, seem no more edifying of the public good than the accusations against G-Rod.