Emburrisment
I coined a neologism today, so the day’s efforts weren’t a total loss (I have a scoop I’m dying to tell you about, but can’t until I get the all clear).
Em-burris vt. 1. To be embarrassed by an egomaniacal, hack politician. em-burris-ment.
Roland Burris. What can I say? I get a lot of questions about him because I’m from Chicago and I used to cover him when the state was my beat for the City News Bureau of Chicago. In short, he was considered a joke. In fact, if we had a Burris event on the agenda we’d moan and groan louder than usual, knowing it was just a platform for Roland’s typical ego-tripping. I mean, the guy used to refer to himself in the third person. I can assure you, Paul Anderson detests that. So does Dennis Rodman, but I digress…
The mildly cynical scorn I hold for silly politicians like him, especially one like Burris who evolved into the perennial candidate who lost gubernatorial bids three times, turned to disgust, though, in the mid-90s when his role in the shameful death-penalty prosecution of Roland Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez started coming into focus. I won’t bore you with the details — both men were innocent — as there is an excellent description of what happened here, but I’ll never forget how appalled I was that top investigators working that case were quitting in droves in protest and Burris inexplicably pressed on. The speculation is he was running for governor and didn’t want to be seen as soft on crime. I sure hope that’s untrue. What would it say about his character?
Do you think Sen. Dianne Feinstein was aware of that when she praised him as a good public servant today and said he ought to be seated? I hope not.
It appears the Dems are slow-walking this to give the Illinois legislature enough time to boot Rod Blagojevich and let Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn appoint someone else. Now that I think about it, Quinn is a blowhard, ego-tripping pol, too, but you know what? He’s also a good public servant. I think most folks would trust his selection more.
If Burris wins his bid he’ll just keep the seat warm anyway. I doubt he could get elected. Especially now. But it could open the door to a Republican beating him in 2010. I’m sure Sen. Harry Reid knows that and he’ll do whatever he can to block Burris.
We talked. Have a safe trip.
FCC
Thanks for the wake-up!
FCC
That’s a good one. I think Blagojevich is beyond emburrisment though.
Great stuff, my man!
chris (epting)
[…] As I said in January, you could take the egos of, say, Muhammad Ali, Deion Sanders and Dennis Rodman combine then into a gigantic whole and it’d still be dwarfed by Burris’ self-regard. So when I was listening to this surreal news conference, held after it became clear that he can’t keep his story straight about what sort of contact he had with Gov. Impeach-a-vich before he was appointed junior senator of Illinois to fill President Obama’s seat, I started getting flashbacks to those looney get-togethers he had with reporters when I worked for the City News Bureau in Chicago. […]