Chicago Daily Observer

You’ve got to admire the chutzpah and pure political chessmanship of Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s appointing Roland Burris to Barack Obama’s senate seat. He puts the entire United States Senate to a test of good citizenship.

First, full disclosure: Though we never had a close personal relationship, I have been a friend and frequent ally of Burris since the mid-1960s when we first worked together on civil rights and independent political campaigns.

Nevertheless, he would not be on my short list for the seat. My first choice was Jesse Jackson Jr.—whom I have known since he was in utero.

I condemned Blago for being the only member of the Illinois Democratic delegation to vote for Bush’s war in Iraq, but voted for him for governor in 2002 against a far-right Republican who helped railroad the innocent Rolando Cruz halfway to the execution chamber. (I was recently reminded that as attorney general ... Read More...

It was fun to host Lynn Sweet on the phone from Washington, D. C, on my WLS radio show last night…even though she tried to filibuster until she was called on it…even though she angrily threatened to hang up early…even though she thought my questions about Roland Burris’ rejection by Harry Reid were race-motivated…when she refused to give a clue as to how the Reid-Burris imbroglio will be settled even though she said she knew (maintaining outrageously that people will have to pay 50 cents for her paper this morning to find out: brilliant chutzpah)…and even though she high-hatted the Chicago audience by saying she was talking on a cell phone while in an elevator on the way to CNN I (so much for us little people). We’re old friendly adversaries and what I said in her introduction was true: of any national reporter-columnist-commentator she is in the ... Read More...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) opened the door Sunday for Roland Burris to be sworn in as a senator from Illinois. “There’s always room to negotiate,” Reid told David Gregory on NBC‘s “Meet the Press.”

From the soundings I took Sunday, I have a well-informed hunch that if Burris wants to get a deal done quickly, he needs to say he won’t run for the seat in 2010.

If legal scholars are right that the fight over Rod Blagojevich’s appointment of Roland Burris to replace President-elect Barack Obama in the Senate will be long, possibly ending up before the U.S. Supreme Court, I’ve got a question:

Who pays?

Rafts of lawyers filing briefs, arguing cases and scouring law books in a constitutional showdown don’t come cheaply. So, who will come up with the millions to defend Blagojevich’s harebrained appointment if it runs into one of the many roadblocks it faces?

Blagojevich himself? Not likely. He’s up to his eyeballs in legal bills already and if it comes to choosing between keeping himself out of jail and standing up for Burris, what do you think he’ll do?

Will Burris raise the dough? Maybe from a few pay-to-play dreamers who think they can derive some benefit from a seated Burris. But even if they could, whatever benefits Burris could bestow ... Read More...

"The report suggested that Mr. Obama had been more involved in thinking about his Senate successor than his public statements about the topic had indicated," the New York Times reports.

*

That's been clearly established. The question is: Why? Why the phony feints, Barack? My hunch is that Obama did not want to appear to be acting like a political boss - even though that's just what he was doing and it wouldn't have been inappropriate in this case. But also, if Obama actually did choose his successor in the U.S. Senate, he couldn't have helped but peeve off some of those who wouldn't have gotten the job. Barack Obama is a political animal of the first kind, and he tried to navigate a potential minefield - helping to turn it into a real one.

In the Biblical gospels, Matthew opines that “blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

In Illinois politics, the opposite is true. The parable would read: “Not blessed are lieutenant governors, for they are too meek to inherit, retain or gain the governorship.”

The good news for Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn (D) is that he will be governor sooner rather than later. Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich will be impeached and removed sometime in 2009.

The bad news is that the sooner Quinn succeeds Blagojevich, the quicker he gets the blame for the looming 2009 budgetary crisis.

The worst news is that, historically, the post of lieutenant governor has been a ticket to oblivion. Of the office’s 42 occupants since 1830, not a single sitting lieutenant governor, nor any of the seven who succeeded to governor, has been elected governor.

Quinn hopes to delay his succession until summer, so ... Read More...

“Very, very low key,” said Don Rose, a former Democratic political consultant in Chicago, describing Mr. Burris, 71, who was named on Tuesday by the state’s embattled governor, Rod R. Blagojevich, to fill the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. “He’s just not a terribly exciting figure. But there’s never been a breath of scandal about him.”

A big notice for CDOBs editorial board member Dennis Byrne today, leading off the Wall Street Journal Best of the Web with his piece on Blagojevich, Burris and Bobby Rush from the Chicago Tribune.

Here’s Dennis:

Blagojevich and Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), who showed up at the announcement press conference, praised Burris’ “fine record of public service,” although my own view is that just getting through a political career here without the usual political taint qualifies as the finest of records. Burris accepted the accolades without seeming to understand the irony.

But Rush aptly demonstrated the cynicism of Blagojevich’s action by brandishing the blunt weapon of racism. Rush, an African American, warned that a senate that refused to seat Burris, an African American, would be engaging in a “hanging” and “lynching.” Even by Chicago political standards, the deployment of those inflammatory words was an extraordinarily ... Read More...

Icasualties has the casualty count at 14 total and 7 by hostile fire in Iraq for the month of December.

There were 19 homicides in the city of Chicago so far in December, with 9 days of reporting remaining. Garfield Park is currently the leading neighborhood for Murder in Chicago.

Wow, that was close. On Thursday, Dec. 11, the New Madrid fault shifted, sleeping volcanoes rumbled, and a Texas-size asteroid veered from its orbit, heading straight to Chicago.

Four days later, the fault line settled with a quiet wheeze, the volcanoes yawned, and the asteroid mysteriously vanished. What luck!

What had changed? Attorney General Lisa Madigan signed a document which she had refused to sign four days before.

Madigan apparently was the sole official who heard apocalypse threatening early this month when the governor’s office routinely prepared an OS (offering statement) for $1.4 billion in short-term borrowing. The state treasurer, Alexi Giannoulias, and comptroller, Dan Hynes, routinely approved the OS.

Then, Gov. Blagojevich was arrested on Dec. 9. His budget director, Ginger Ostro, quickly put out word to investors: hey, we’re cool, the charges have no impact on state finances, don’t worry, buy the bonds.

The state was in a ... Read More...

Nothing grabs headlines like dire warnings about homicide trends. The New York Times writes: “Homicides by Black Teenagers Rise, Bucking a Trend.”

The numbers in The New York Times graphic and most of the James Alan Fox report fail to control for the change in the population of young black males over this time period.

According to U.S. Census data, the number of blacks aged 15 to 19 rose by about 15 percent between 2000 and 2007.

So even if any individual black teen’s propensity for crime was unchanged over this time period, the aggregate amount of black-teen crime would have risen by 15 percent. In other words, in that New York Times graphic on perpetrators, just based on changes in population, the number of perpetrators would have been expected to rise from a little over 800 to nearly 1,000. Knowing that, the actual rise to roughly 1,150 doesn’t seem ... Read More...

resident-elect Barack Obama spent yesterday afternoon in Honolulu, going to the zoo with his daughters and visiting his high school campus. And yet, he couldn’t escape the political melodrama unfolding more than 4,000 miles away.

While Obama vacationed, some of the main characters from his political past took turns starring in a bizarre Chicago news conference. First to the lectern was embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was arrested this month on federal corruption charges, and from whom Obama has worked to distance himself. Blagojevich then introduced Roland Burris, his appointment to fill Obama’s seat in the U.S. Senate. Burris once held a fundraiser at his house for Obama and calls the president-elect “somebody whose career I really helped launch.”

Then, near the end of the news conference, Rep. Bobby L. Rush was beckoned to the front of the room, where he asked the public not to “lynch” Burris because ... Read More...

Roland Burris’ appointment to the U.S. senate by Gov. Blagojevich seriously complicates an already jumbled political atmosphere for Illinois Democratic leaders.

The best description of Burris is that he’s a black Alan Dixon. Listen, that’s not a bad referral. I very much liked Dixon and like Burris. Dixon was a thoroughly honorable moderate senator…a friend of mine…who was the only senator who had served the state in all three branches: judicial, legislative and executive. He was far from aloof. Like Burris, Dixon, an inveterate glad-hander and non-confrontational regular Democrat who served as senator from 1980–93 and was known as “Al the Pal,” was sunny dispositioned and reasonable.

Like Dixon, Burris is personally honest and has charted a moderate course in Democratic politics. He is a young looking 71, was the first black to be elected statewide in Illinois. He served as comptroller from 1979 to 1991 and attorney general 1991 ... Read More...

Burris was the Chairman of the Governor’s Commission on State Pensions as recently as 2005. Illinois State Pensions were then, and are now, the most underfunded in the country. – State pension panel nears vote on proposed cuts, Copley News Service, January 7, 2005

Pay To Play

A company headed by former state comptroller and attorney general Roland Burris has been awarded a $150,000 state contract to advise disadvantaged businesses on how to improve their operations and ultimately win state contracts. – Consulting firm awarded $150,000 contract by IDOT, State Journal-Register, June 16, 2004

The Ho-Chunk Nation has tapped former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris and his law firm to lobby for state approval of its proposed casino complex in Hoffman Estates. – Ex-attorney general to lobby for casino, Chicago Daily Herald, June 5, 2003

A wide-ranging hospital fraud investigation in Nevada has Cook County Board President Todd Stroger ... Read More...

So the Governor installs Roland Burris into the Senate seat vacated by Obama. I thought Harry Reid wouldn’t seat anyone appointed by Governor Blagojevich? What does or will Blago get for this appointment? What about someone turning down the heat?

Does anyone think that the General Assembly might slow down it’s impeachment process now? Do anyone think the Democratic leadership will now say that the proper thing to do is to wait until the US Attorney brings his case so that Blagojevich or his henchman’s trials won’t be tainted?

Will naming Burris mean Blago and his meetings with Rahm will now be off the front pages? I mean Obama has already done an investigation and said his people did nothing wrong. Even though some of the things in the report do not jibe with the facts as they are already known. Too bad Rahm is in Africa or we could ... Read More...