Politics: Burris is a hack
Posted in Politics with tags Roland Burris, Wanda Sykes on January 1, 2009 by Billy DennisThe Chicago Council of Lawyers and the Fund for Justice did a survey of the Illinois Attorney General’s office back in the 1990s. Then AG Roland Burris refuse to let his staff participate. The resulting survey found:
Based upon our judicial surveys and interviews with present and former attorneys within the Attorney General’s Office, it appears that personnel policies are nonexistent, the quality of lawyering is inconsistent, communication and cooperation are lacking, morale is low, and too much legal work is being given to outside counsel. Some employees of state agencies told us that they did not trust the AGO for reasons of both (1) politics (they felt the AGO put politics ahead of quality representation) and (2) incompetence (they did not believe the AGO provides quality representation).
Hat tip: Reverse spin.
Meanwhile, Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn has this to say about Burris:
Roland Burris is a disagreeable mediocrity as a politician.
Voters have rightly rejected him numerous times in his bids for higher office—governor, U.S. senator, mayor of Chicago—because he’s at least six parts ego to one part performance, a charmless, presumptuous irritant on the stump and at the debate lectern.
Zorn is still POed at Burris for turning a blind eye toward Rolando Cruz’s apparent innocence because he didn’t want to appear soft on crime.
Zorn still thinks that Burris will eventually end up getting a seat in the U.S. Senate. Rich Miller, who is almost never wrong about these sorts of things, says different. He thinks with Secretary of State Jesse White and the United States Senate throwing up too many roadblocks, Burris will never be seated.
The way I see it is this: Some time between now and when Blago is impeached, Burris will have to get BOTH the Illinois Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court to rule in his favor. Neither body is going to be eager to step in the middle of a process that is political by statute and is still ongoing. The U.S. Senate can simply refer the issue of Burriss’ appointment to a committee and wait until future Governor Pat Quinn’s appointment is certified by White.
And as to efforts to play the race card and guilt the Democrats into seating him, well let’s just say that little trick is not going to word. President-elect Obama is on record opposing Burris’s appointment. As that great philosopher Wanda Sykes said, “You can’t blame the man when you ARE the man.”
