12/30/08
* 3:53 pm - The governor’s chief legal counsel has resigned…
The Blagojevich administration’s top lawyer, William J. Quinlan, resigned today — the same day that the governor announced he’s decided to fill President-elect Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat.
“Today, I have decided to resign my position as General Counsel and return to private practice,” Quinlan wrote in a memo to his staff.
The memo, a copy of which was obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times, made only a passing reference to Blagojevich’s Dec. 9 arrest on corruption charges.
“We should not let recent events diminish the pride in our accomplishments or the commitment to public service with which we approach our job each day,” he wrote. “The state of Illinois is a great place to live and work. The opportunity to serve its citizens is truly an honor.”
* These quotes show, even more, how detached from reality that Roland Burris is right now. Congressman Danny Davis quoted in The Hill…
“He expressed confidence in his ability to have the trust of people to the extent that he could not only do a good job, but that he also could help restore trust,” Davis said.
“He sort of indicated that with all his years of statewide service, a lot of people knew Roland Burris, and knew what Roland Burris stood for, and knew that he had a record of working with all different kinds of people,” Davis said. […]
“I knew how much time one would need to spend defending the decision. I didn’t want to spend so much of my time dealing with that,” Davis said.
“He had a slightly different perspective,” Davis continued. “He was willing to go through it. I was not.”
* I didn’t notice (the sound was off on the TV I was watching) that both Blagojevich and Rush used the word “lynch” in their remarks…
Rush asked his audience “not to hang or lynch the appointee as you try to castigate the appointor.”
“There are no African-Americans in the Senate and I don’t think anyone — any U. S. Senator that’s sitting in the Senate right now wants to go on record to deny one African-American from being seated in the U.S. Senate.
“Feel free to castigate the appointor but don’t lynch the appointor,” Governor Rod Blagojevich said as he left.
* Jesse White was just asked about the blatant racial component in Blagojevich’s latest move: “Even though Roland Burris is an African-American, it doesn’t mean that an appointment by a different governor would not be [a black person].”
And this from Thinkprogress:
Speculating on Blagojevich’s motives, former U.S. Attorney Kendall Coffey told CNN that the Illinois governor may be acting “crazy like a fox” and looking ahead to his own potential trial. Coffey said Blagojevich’s “conniving strategy” may be an effort to persuade future African-American jurors:
COFFEY: My question is: is he crazy or is he crazy like a fox? Rick, consider the fact that everything that Rod Blagojevich does at this point is with reference to his concern about spending a lot of prison time. So what does this appointment do for him? […]
Let’s get to what may be the more conniving strategy of Rod Blagojevich. He has now put an extremely prominent African-American in play, he says, to replace the ultimate respected African-American in politics right now, Barack Obama.
And he is going to say, no matter what the Senate does, I did what I could, and those guys in the Senate blocked it, that Secretary of State blocked it, but I did the right thing. And how will that play if at all to African-American jurors on the Rod Blagojevich jury panel trial one day? He may be trying to get a few points down the road, because he is surely going to need all of the points he can get.
President-elect Barack Obama has issued this statement:
Roland Burris is a good man and a fine public servant, but the Senate Democrats made it clear weeks ago that they cannot accept an appointment made by a governor who is accused of selling this very Senate seat. I agree with their decision, and it is extremely disappointing that Governor Blagojevich has chosen to ignore it. I believe the best resolution would be for the Governor to resign his office and allow a lawful and appropriate process of succession to take place. While Governor Blagojevich is entitled to his day in court, the people of Illinois are entitled to a functioning government and major decisions free of taint and controversy.
2 comments:
G-Rod is slick as he uses the race card and Burris must have a big favor coming. Burris is against every thing Obama is trying to change and it's a shoe in for a Republican to win Obama's seat. Let's see what trick G-Rod will pull next. G-Rod is looking for a get out of jail card and he'll play this until he's removed from office.
I saw the whole replay on CSpan Illinois later that evening.
Yes, Bobby Rush came up and he was not there by accident, I believe Bobby Rush had a lot to do with the decision. Bobby Rush ended the conference where many reporters were trying to attack Rod.
Actually Jackie, most citizens respect Burris, he was the State Controller before becoming the State Attorney General, he was voted in by a large margin, he was also not on Blago's short list or was not a number in the formal complaint concerning the Senate seat.
Really I think Blago consulted with some of the best to make this decision, and Congressman Bobby Rush, district 1, Illinois was certainly one of them.
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