'Extremely disappointing,' but not for the reason you think

It usually takes just a bit to surprise me when it comes to politics, and keep in mind, 2008 was the year that Sarah Palin was unloosed upon us, but I'm admittedly jaw-dropped over the bruhaha developing over the appointment of Roland Burris by embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to fill the vacant U.S. Senate seat left by President-elect Barack Obama.

There has already been a huge wave of Democrats feeding on themselves, which is hardly doing anybody any great favor. I would have thought the Dems would have been perfectly fine with sitting back and watching the continued implosion of the post-election GOP, but nope, they gotta grab some of the stupidity, which is even more puzzling, despite the fact there is plenty to go around.

First, you have the Illinois Secretary of State, Jesse White, coming out with a statement that he would not certify any appointment Blagojevich made to the seat. Here's where the problems start. Blagojevich, while tainted to the Nth degree from the taped conversations that have been made public, is still the Governor of Illinois, whether or not anybody likes it. Until he is convicted of something, anything, he still has a constitutional duty to the people of the State of Illinois to appoint someone to fill the Senate seat until a special election can be held, The idea that he "robbed" the people of Illinois from having a special election first is flat ludicrous. The NFL coach on the sideline may know he's getting canned after the game, but as long as he's wearing the headset, he can go for two if he wants to. It's called doing your job, for better or worse.

Second, you have the U.S. Senate saying they can refuse to seat anyone who is not qualified to serve. Really? By that measure, we should have no U.S. Senate at all, and Mitch McConnell, Norm Coleman, and a handful of other less-than-stellar human beings would have had to go out and find real jobs. The yapping on experience near the end of this year has been comical. If experience meant anything, we never would have landed on the moon.

Third, and perhaps most lamentably, the race card (maybe even a whole deck of them) has already been played, although it has yet to be doubled down. Rep. Bobby Rush was right to question whether the U.S. Senate's Democrat faction would want to block the appointment of an African-American to a seat. There are currently no blacks in the U.S. Senate, male or female, Democrat, Republican, or independent, and the reaction to the appointment perhaps says more about the Senate than anyone is willing to admit.

Roland Burris has had an exemplary record in serving the people of the state of Illinois, no small feat given the corruption culture that is as traditional as being a Cubs fan in that state. For those few journalists who decry Burris as a "loveable political loser," they need to prioritize their jabs before they throw them. Burris was elected to three terms as state comptroller (the first African-American to be elected to any state-wide office in Illinois) and a term as the state's Attorney General. The fact he lost three bids for Governor, as well as a bid for Chicago's mayoral seat hardly means anything in the long run. Honestly, running against a Daley for Mayor of Chicago is kind of like fighting for the heavyweight championship of the world with one arm tied behind your back.

This hot mess, brought to you by the Senate Democrats, the Illinois state assembly, the Illinois Secretary of State, and others who hold the actual process in apparent contempt, is nothing more than posturing to put themselves in front of a camera and try to gain the very same "reformer" label that Blagojevich himself wrapped up in during his gubernatorial election. The sad part is, now it's starting to look like no one, right or wrong, is going to come out of this smelling like a rose. "Extremely disappointing?" Yeah, but not for all the reasons the Democrats would have you believe.