Democrats Misstep, My Prediction Becomes Reality
The day Harry Reid said that they wouldn’t seat Rolad Burris to replace President-Elect Obama in the Senate, I predicted that the political fallout would be so high that they couldn’t carry it out very long without paying a steep political price for it. Charles Babington says it best in this AP article:
WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate Democrats who thought they could push away Roland Burris misjudged the racial fallout, underestimated public reaction and wound up on shaky legal ground.
The blunders began when the Democrats, including President-elect Barack Obama, insisted they would not seat Burris as the Senate’s only black member because the appointment came from a governor accused of trying to sell Obama’ former seat. On Wednesday, they all but admitted being outflanked by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, praising Burris and suggesting he soon will be a senator.
This outcome was predictable from the instant that Bobby Rush stood up at Gov. Blagojevich’s press conference where Gov. Blagojevich announced Burris as Obama’s replacement. In fact, I said at the time that it was a brilliant political move on Blagojevich’s part.
I don’t think that the Democrats suffered any lasting damage because of this incident. Rather, I think this is just another indicator of Sen. Reid’s incompetence. I think it’s proof that Sen. Reid’s political instincts are second to just about everyone’s.
Instead of focusing on Burris and racial issues, Sen. Reid thought he could reject Burris on the grounds that Gov. Blagojevich was corrupt. It’s apparent that Reid misunderestimated Gov. Blagojevich’s willingness to fight. Gov. Blagojevich essentially played chicken with Reid and Reid caved.
Check out this collection of brave-sounding statements:
Top Democrats’ response was quick and nearly unanimous: Burris would never be seated because of the governors’ misdeeds.
“Anyone appointed by Gov. Blagojevich cannot be an effective representative” and “will not be seated by the Democratic caucus,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and his top deputy, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. Obama said, “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.”
Senate Democrats are famous for being blowhards. They’re also incompetent. Now that the entire world knows that they run the show in Washington, they won’t get away with blaming Republicans when things go wrong. They won’t get away with it because there won’t be enough Republicans around to blame.
Let’s see how ugly it gets now that the Democrats have the spotlight all to themselves.
Technorati Tags: Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Barack Obama, Rod Blagojevich, Roland Burris, Bobby Rush, Race
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog