Newspapers: Resign
Friday, May 29, 2009 - Posted by Rich Miller
* The calls for US Sen. Roland Burris’ resignation are once again spiking at the editorial boards. He won’t resign, of course, but everybody wants their say and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Tribune…
It’s remarkable that he continues to open his mouth thinking anyone will believe a word that comes out. He even boasts of his ruses, claiming Wednesday that he was only trying to “placate” gubernatorial brother Rob Blagojevich during their now notorious November phone call.
* SJ-R…
We have listened to the recording and here is what we (and, we believe, almost anyone else) believe we heard: A desperate Roland Burris willing to do just about anything to become a senator, but not wanting to get caught doing just about anything to become a senator. He knows if he holds a fundraising event for the governor and gets the appointment, it’ll look like he bought it. And he knows if he doesn’t come up with money for the governor, he probably won’t get the appointment.
* Bloomington Pantagraph…
He didn’t come across as trying to avoid wrongdoing. He came across as trying not to get caught.
He didn’t say there was anything wrong with having a fund raiser for the man who would decide whether to fulfill his wish to become senator. He talked about what the press might do and “so many negative connotations that Burris is trying to buy an appointment.”
* Peoria Journal Star…
The more Burris talks, the deeper the hole he digs. He now acknowledges, for instance, that his sworn testimony in Springfield was incomplete because the “one thing you don’t do is to … volunteer information that wasn’t asked. … There was no obligation there.” Say what? “No obligation” for someone who wants to represent Illinois’ interests in the U.S. Senate to come clean under oath? Does he know what the meaning of the word “is” is?
Meanwhile, he insists with a straight face that “I’m not splitting hairs, I’m not walking a crooked line. … I’m as straightforward and honest as I can be.” If this is the best he can do, it’s not good enough.
* Paul Green has the best quote…
Perjury cases are notoriously hard to prove, and the U.S. Senate is notoriously slow in dealing with corruption charges against fellow lawmakers. But it may be enough to kill off any lingering hopes on Burris’s part that he might get elected to the Senate seat.
“It’s a very heavy rock to put on an already wobbly canoe,” said Paul Green, director of Roosevelt University’s School of Policy Studies.
* Good point…
The call may not show Burris making his fundraising support contingent on getting anything in return. But it definitely paints a portrait of a relationship between Burris and the governor’s camp that was a lot more intimate and involved than anyone had previously let on.