Matt Yglesias

Darrel Thompson Sure Can Quit Burris

Three weeks ago, Darrel Thompson, a senior adviser to Harry Reid, was dispatched to serve as Chief of Staff to Senator Roland Burris to help him put a team together and manage his office. Now Thompson is quitting as Democrats everywhere once again hop off the Burris bandwagon now that it’s come out that he hasn’t been playing it straight about his dealings with former governor Blagojevic. And now Illinois Governor Quinn is calling for a speedy special election process to get the state a senator untainted by this whole mess. That sounds like a very good idea to me.

Bad Burris

I think it’s fair to say that Roland Burris’ debut as a U.S. Senator is not going so well:

In the latest in a series of shifting accounts of his conduct, Sen. Roland W. Burris (D-Ill.) told reporters that he tried to raise money for then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich at the same time he was asking Blagojevich to appoint him to the Senate.

Burris said he contacted “some people” about holding a fundraiser at the request of Blagojevich’s brother, Robert, only to learn that no one was willing to help the governor. He said he later changed his mind, raised no money and contributed none.

The account to reporters in Peoria, Ill., was Burris’s fifth version of his contacts with close associates of Blagojevich and the first time he acknowledged trying to raise money for the former governor, who was arrested and forced from office on corruption charges.

Now we’ve got an Illinois prosecutor looking into things along with the Senate ethics committee and I’d say Burris’ shot at the 2010 nomination look pretty slim. He doesn’t really seem to have done anything corrupt per se, but ambition and desire for a Senate seat definitely seem to have gotten the better of his good sense and basic ethics. Maybe he could be made Commerce Secretary?

Burris Changes His Tune on Blago Contacts

It seems to me that Roland Burris never should have accepted Ron Blagojevic’s offer to have him become a pawn in the corrupt governor’s insane gambits. And he certainly shouldn’t have done this:

Senator Roland W. Burris of Illinois acknowledged in documents made public Saturday that the brother of former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich sought campaign fund-raising help from him in the weeks and months before his appointment to succeed Barack Obama as the state’s junior senator.

Mr. Burris said he provided no money to Governor Blagojevich’s campaign in response to the brother’s request.

The disclosure was different from Mr. Burris’s earlier descriptions, including one under oath, of his conversations with those closest to the former governor. It raised new questions about events that preceded Mr. Burris’s unusual appointment in late December and prompted some Republican lawmakers in Illinois to immediately demand an inquiry into whether Mr. Burris committed perjury.

The good news, though, is that Blago is on his way out one way or another. But meanwhile the equally corrupt Norm Coleman, despite having been beaten at the ballot box, is getting solid support from Republicans across the country in his effort to mount endless legal challenges and keep Al Franken out of the Senate.

Feinstein Goes Rogue

Not content with making trouble on the Leon Panetta front, Diane Feinstein’s decided to come out in favor of seating Roland Burris. On this issue, I’m much more sympathetic to her position, though given Burris’ behavior since Blago offered him the seat I can see why Senate Dems would rather have a more collegial colleague.

More on Burris

Jack Balkin and Mark Tushnet argue that the Senate can, in fact, refuse to seat Roland Burris.

Meanwhile, since I don’t think I’ve said this before, we should all be clear that Burris and Bobby Rush are really behaving in an irresponsible manner here. It would have been the simplest thing on earth for Burris to just resist the temptations of higher office and say “no” to Blagojevich’s scheme here. It’s very hard to imagine that their actions over these past couple of days are advancing the cause of progressive politics or the interests of African-Americans. See also this, this, and this from Ta-Nehisi Coates.