Everyone Loses Luster With The Burris Appointment

In politics, as in normal life, bad behavior breeds more bad behavior. Errors force additional errors in response. It gets harder for anyone involved to rise above.

So it is with the fiasco of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, arrested Dec. 9 on corruption charges and headed for probable impeachment and criminal indictment in the weeks ahead.

No one comes out of this looking very good. Not the principals, the parties, the media or the blogging and twittering masses yearning to pile on.

Of late, the tendency in some quarters is to salute Blagojevich for what is variously called his defiance, moxie, chutzpah -- or even courage -- in appointing Roland Burris to succeed President-elect Barack Obama in the Senate.

Please. Do we really admire this?

Too shameless to step down or step aside, Blagojevich has kept the pot boiling to further his self-interest. Caught trying to profit from his appointment power, he still sees that power as an asset to be exploited. Maybe he imagines it's a bargaining chip toward the get-out-of-jail-free card he's looking for, or at the very least a chance to curry favor with potential jurors in Chicago.

All too willing to play ball with the embattled governor is Roland Burris. Thirty years ago, Burris was the first African-American elected statewide in Illinois history. But after terms as comptroller and attorney general a generation ago, he tried running for bigger jobs such as senator and governor and mayor of Chicago. He lost in the primaries every time and faded from public view. He is now 71, but still craving another achievement to carve in the space he has left open on his cemetery monument.

None of this would be happening if the Illinois Supreme Court had been willing to strip Blagojevich of the appointment power. Nor would it be happening if the Democrats in the Illinois Legislature had been willing to schedule a special election for the seat in 2009. Obviously, those Democrats thought it easier to have Obama's successor named by Blagojevich's successor, presumably Democratic Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn (especially because the strongest special election prospect looked to be Mark Kirk, a Republican congressman).

Through it all, we in the media have been more than willing to fan the flames. We are all too eager to elevate a sideshow such as this -- even as the economy tanks and Gaza burns. The existence of bigger, more serious stories may even make us hungrier for the distraction. This yarn has criminality, obscenity, overweening personal ambition and even those "racial overtones" we love to talk about with hushed voices. We can't help ourselves.

We've even taken to calling the governor "Blago," a nickname that smacks of fondness.

Back in December, when Blagojevich was arrested, Burris said the governor should resign and not fill the Obama vacancy in the Senate. Then the conversation moved on, other potential appointees were eliminated and Burris saw a chance for himself. Last week, he took it.

Since then, Burris has become a fixture on television, popping up more often than the GEICO gecko. He speaks of his appointment as "what the Lord has wrought" and flies to the Capitol to make a show of being turned away. He talks about all this as evidence of racial prejudice, as though the only objection anyone could have to a Blagojevich appointment would be the appointee's race.

But Burris' deportment is a model of decorum compared with some among his supporters. Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush, beginning his ninth term in the House, had to fight off a primary challenge from Obama back in 2000. Rush took the stage the day Burris was appointed and said no Democrat in the Senate would dare oppose a black appointee when the chamber had no current black members.

He has a point, of course. But he conveniently neglects to mention that just four years ago, when Obama was trying to become the only black member of the Senate, Rush endorsed a white candidate for the seat instead.

Obama and the Senate Democratic leaders have made their own mistakes. By stating flatly from the start they would not seat anyone Blagojevich appointed, they set themselves up for just the kind of bind they are in now. But they all believed a united front was the best way to force "Blago" to resign. They assumed he would be shamed into resigning. They misoverestimated him, as President Bush might have observed.

Should they have dropped their principled objection to a Blagojevich-tainted appointee when Burris' name came up? Perhaps. But had they done so, their shift would have been called political convenience -- and perhaps moral turpitude as well.

Damned if they do and damned if they don't. And for those whose main desire is to see Obama and the Democratic majority embarrassed, it is a gift that keeps on giving.