Obama Weighs In

In a surprising, nay, shocking, even jaw-droppingly so, development, President-elect In Training Wheels, Barack Obama, has actually interrupted his well-earned? vacation activities of surfing, golfing, annoying the troops, pec-flexing and getting p.o.’d with the omnipresent press for unabashedly loving him so, to comment on a matter of obvious grave import to him, the latest chess move in the power play he helped orchestrate against embattled Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.  Disobeying the impotent Democratic Senate Caucus led by Harry Reid, Blagojevich defiantly appointed Roland Burris to the Great Hype Hope’s vacant Senate seat.  From the Associated Press:

President-elect Barack Obama says he supports the decision by Senate Democrats to deny his vacated Senate seat to an appointee of embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. On Tuesday, Blagojevich appointed former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris. He would be the nation’s only black senator.

Democratic leaders in the Senate are rejecting the appointment, arguing that because of accusations that Blagojevich tried to sell the seat to the highest bidder, any appointment by him would be tainted.

In a statement, Obama called Burris a fine man but said he agreed that the Senate cannot accept an appointment from Blagojevich. Obama repeated his call for Blagojevich to resign and allow the seat to be filled by other means.

However, Politico pointed out that the Senate’s big talk amounts to just that:

It’s unclear whether Reid has the power to block Burris’ appointment. Senate leaders discussed the impending announcement on a conference call Tuesday afternoon.

John Fortier, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote in a Politico Ideas piece this month that the Senate doesn’t have the power to reject the appointment.

“The Senate would have little recourse but to seat Blagojevich, as he meets the minimum constitutional qualifications for office,” Fortier wrote of the possibility that the governor might appoint himself. “But after seating Blagojevich, the Senate could then expel him by a two-thirds vote. The seat would be vacant again, and the new governor could make an appointment. Or by then, the Legislature might have changed the law to do away with appointments, in which case the seat would sit vacant until a special election was held.”

Obama, desperately trying to shape the Senate in his image using his typical passive/agressive, envelope pushing, playing dirty by the book, “what who me?” hardball with clean hands tactics, is learning quickly that bringing a gun to a knife fight only works if your opponents are reluctant or unable to pull the pistols they keep tucked in their own belts.  To portray Barack Obama as a good guy in this Blagogate mess, is akin to calling Al Capone a reformer for ridding the North Side of Bugs Moran’s gang in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.