Carol Marin on the Burris fiasco

I must admit that this caught my eye when I saw her column this morning:

DURBIN: There is a "feeling of disappointment of some of us in the Senate. . . . We were relying on his sworn testimony."

TRANSLATION: Everyone knew this guy, appointed by THAT guy, was tainted but Harry Reid and I didn't have the cojones to cross the Congressional Black Caucus and just say no.

The primary reason why this is news at the moment. They wouldn't have this problem if they held their ground, instead they had to buckle under the pressure. A race card issued for a man who had the unfortunate distinction of being appointed by a corrupt Governor. Even worse Burris accepted and now he has to answer more questions about who he talked to about that seat or whether he gave the corrupt former Governor any money.

It's a mess!

The race card still came up in the column however:

Now, Cobb says, Burris' enemies are trying to bloody him up and weaken him with mounting legal bills.

"And then it won't be called racism," said Cobb.

Can someone explain to me what this means?

Look, I'm sick of this race card already. Why would Burris' mounting legal bills be called racism? For that matter why wouldn't it be? Any situation could warrant the use of the race card, even if race isn't the issue.

Race wasn't an issue with Burris' appointment. Especially with the now corrupt ex-Governor making the appointment. It was already said that any appointment made by him was unnacceptable. Then here comes Bobby Rush utilizing the race card in this instance. He effectively placed his weight (or support) behind a flawed appointment and that was unfortunate.

Let me just say that while I do believe under normal circumstances Burris wouldn't be a bad pick it's just unfortunate that it was made this way. It was unfortunate that he was another pawn in another game by the corrupt ex-governor. Now we are further distracted because there are more questions about whether Burris told the truth.

You know I posted this over at Mechanics not too long after the Burris story broke. I took Durbin to task for being one of the crowd of vultures who want him gone. Indeed I saw he was one of the people who opposed at first Burris' appointment by the corrupt ex-Governor.

Read this round-up over at the CapFax because you'll see stories about Burris getting snubbed by his colleagues. It's harsh, but that's the situation we're in right now.