As Roland Burris’ allies–and the Politico–would have it, his biggest problem right now is that the media strategy he employed to manage his admissions that he has much deeper ties to Rod Blagojevich than he let on was insufficient to the task.

I was gone a whole week, and Burris didn’t even resign? That makes him more stubborn than either Rove or Gonzales.

Given Burris’ and Ettinger’s numerous statements, it appears that Burris and RobBlago were trying to find a way for Burris to give without the donations to be traceable to Burris.

It turns out Roland Burris wasn’t completely forthcoming about the extent of his conversations with the Blago camp about the Senate seat.

Russ Feingold will introduce a Constitutional Amendment designed to prevent the clusterfucks of the Caroline Kennedy and Rod Blagojevich sort: mandating popular elections to fill mid-term Senate seats.

Three items of note in the Blago trial: Edward Genson, Blago’s attorney, has quit after Blago repeatedly ignored his advice. Blago’s wife Patti was fired from her day job. And Fitz has gotten four tapes from his investigation released to the IL state senate for use in the impeachment trial.

In what is almost certainly a stunt designed to hold up Blago’s impeachment, his defense attorneys are refusing to represent him during the impeachment trial.

All told, we now know of at least seven taps and bugs that were used to monitor Rod Blagojevich in the weeks leading up to his arrest.

On reflection, it’s just really neat the way the Blagojevich offer to Burris ended up in an offer–certainly picked up by wiretaps–that emphasized Burris’ qualifications for the office.

Roland Burris’ admission that he spoke with Lon Monk about the Senate seat is interesting for several reasons–not least because Monk is centrally tied to the allegations against Blago.