Roland Burris - Ready to Serve in the Senate
Today’s Tribune interview with Senate hopeful Roland Burris sketches out some of the candidate’s bold and nuanced policy positions:
Burris maintained it was unfair to seek substantive answers from him about his goals because he hadn’t taken the oath of office—even though he was interested in the Senate appointment since last summer.
“I want to get my Senate legs under me and make sure I get down all the rules and regulations,” Burris said in the interview…”In the meantime, I will begin to assess the various national issues that are out there in general and the Illinois issues in particular.”
To be fair, the Tribune’s editorial stance in the segment I just clipped seems fairly skeptical of Burris, so perhaps there were more thoughtful-sounding quotes in the interview.
But the fact that he let those words come out of his mouth is telling.
Politicians run for office - at least in theory - because they want to effect some kind of change. Accepting an appointment to an office without clear goals and policy positions is the height of arrogance.
What is really galling, however, is how happy Burris is to express this sentiment to the media and, by extension, the people of Illinois. It’s an attitude that says, “Get stuffed; I’m going to the Senate.” This also pretty much sums up his appointment, and presumably his tenure in office.
At this point, we just need to seat or not seat this turkey. It would be nice if by Inauguration we could focus on the… horrible everything, rather than the absurdly inflated egos of a couple lame politicians that have proved ineffectual, at best. Let’s leave the limelight for those who actually have substantive contributions to make.
There comes a point in every story about Illinois’ corrupt politics where the citizens just give up fighting and try to make the latest electoral assault as brief and painless as possible.
I don’t know if laying back and thinking of 2010 is the most proactive answer, but it might present the least chance of permanent damage.
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January 15th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
I prefer to think of it as a boldly nuanced (is this possibly?) dig at tammy duckworth.