Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Oops!

Dennis Byrne of the Chicago Tribune explains Rush's effort to use racial blackmail in an effort to seat Burris:

Rush aptly demonstrated the cynicism of Blagojevich's action by brandishing the blunt weapon of racism. Rush, an African American, warned that a senate that refused to seat Burris, an African American, would be engaging in a "hanging" and "lynching." Even by Chicago political standards, the deployment of those inflammatory words was an extraordinarily slimy racist play.
But that's Chicago for you. By appointing a black man, Blagojevich figured that he would put Reid in the hot seat by forcing him to shut out the only African American in the Senate.
Carol Marin of the Chicago Sun-Times adds:

Who dares, asked Rep. Bobby Rush, . . . to deny a qualified (and, important to note in Illinois, never indicted) appointee as the lone black to replace the lone black in the nearly lily-white U.S. Senate?
Illinois politicians, few of them profiles in courage, better tread carefully with their African-American constituency.
That might include President-elect Obama, who has endorsed his fair share of regular Chicago Democrats.

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