RBO News & Views — The Sin of Omission Edition

^{Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) being escorted from Senate by Capitol Police, 01/06/09; See update below.}

There are so many items in the news that fall under this rubric that it’s tough to know exactly where to begin.

You need a scorecard to keep all these players sorted out when you do know who they are. It would be impossible for the general public to have a clue, if they cared … and it would be way too much to expect the Tanning Bed Media to give a damn and be honest when popping forth with their nonsense.

Take the people’s names in the first article cited below one-by-one, for example, and there’s nary a non-BHO connected or disinterested person among them. Honest people would have been, well, honest.

Laura Washington = Woods Fund = Ayers = Obama: The AP’s Jesse Washington reported yesterday that the “first race card of the Obama era is now in play” with Blago’s selection of Roland Burris as BHO’s Senate replacement:

In an apparent bid to save his political life — or perhaps just irritate and confound his enemies — Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is trying to wedge a black man into the all-white Senate. On Tuesday, Blagojevich’s choice, Roland Burris, was turned away on Capitol Hill when he tried to take his seat.

So far, the episode has not produced a full-throated cry of racism, and many black political leaders are lying low instead of lining up behind Burris. The fact that America’s first black president has come out against seating Burris may be preventing the dispute from turning into a major racial flare-up.

Still, the drama has forced racial politics, once again, to center stage.

Here it comes:

The symbolism is very powerful,” said Laura S. Washington (right), a politics professor at DePaul University and columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. “The fact that this is an overwhelmingly white Senate that’s stopping Roland Burris, a qualified, distinguished, by all appearances senatorial appointment, and white men are standing in the door, I think that’s very powerful, and it sends a very powerful message to African-Americans who have always distrusted the system.”

Who, you ask, is Laura S. Washington?

In his April 18, 2008, WaPo article about unrepentant Communist terrorists Billy Ayers and his cohort in crime and spouse, Bernardine Dorhn (left) — Former ’60s Radical Is Now Considered Mainstream in Chicago — Peter Slevin wrote:

The two men served for three years on the board of the Woods Fund, an anti-poverty group. The board, which Obama has since left, was small and collegial, said chair Laura Washington, who served with them. It met four times a year for a half-day, mostly to approve grants, she said. The atmosphere was “friendly but businesslike.”

Washington praised Ayers as “an admired and respected member of Chicago’s civic community” and “a very big proponent of self-determination in education: Community schools and for the community to have a role in improving education.”

Is that all?, you ask. Well, no. Jesse Washington continues:

Blagojevich clearly understands those sentiments, as does Rep. Bobby Rush (right), the former Black Panther who represents a congressional district on the South Side of Chicago.

Less than a month after calling the corruption charges against Blagojevich “so heinous that he has forfeited his right to appoint someone” to Obama’s Senate seat, Rush stood next to Blagojevich and Burris last week and pleaded: “I will ask you to not hang and lynch the appointee as you try to castigate the appointer.” Later, Rush called the Senate the “last bastion of plantation politics.”

Bobby Rush? Where have we heard that name before? Well, this is the same Bobby Rush that defeated upstart Barack Obama in that 1999-2000 run for the U.S. House of Representatives.

More? you ask. Jesse Washington writes:

“If there ever was a playing of the race card, this was it,” said Chris Rabb, an activist with afronetizen.com and former legislative assistant for Carol Moseley Braun, a black woman who preceded Obama in the Senate seat. “Blagojevich may be crazy, but he’s not stupid.”

Hmmm. Carol Moseley Braun (left). Sounds familiar, don’t ya’ think? As Trevor Loudon informed us back in October 2008:

After law school, Moseley Braun worked as a prosecutor in the United States Attorney’s office in Chicago. In 1978 when she won a seat in the Illinois State Legislature.

Later she worked for Judson Miner’s law firm, as did Barack Obama, Michelle Obama and former Weather Underground terrorist Bernardine Dohrn, wife of fellow Weatherman Bill Ayers.

Moseley Braun became Chicago Mayor Harold Washington’s (left) legislative floor leader and sponsored bills to reform education, to ban discrimination in housing and private clubs and to bar the State of Illinois from investing funds in Apartheid South Africa.

Harold Washington was a lifelong Communist Party associate, elected to Chicago’s mayoralty in 1983, by a communist/socialist led black/white “liberal”/Latino coalition.

Moseley Braun also had ties to the Communist Party. [...]

While Carol Moseley-Braun was close to Chicago’s Communist Party, other socialist groups also helped her to win elections. [...]

DSA [Democratic Socialists for America] also backed Moseley Braun. [...] Chicago DSA put a big effort into Carol Moseley Braun’s successful Senate campaign. [...]

Barack Obama [then working for Project Vote] also played a role in Carol Moseley Braun’s Senate victory [in 1992] — perhaps the decisive role. [...]

Project Vote of course was an affiliate of the radical community group ACORN, to which Obama was long connected.

When Obama successfully ran for an Illinois State Senate seat in 1995/96 he was endorsed by DSA. He also joined and was endorsed by the New Party, a front for ACORN, DSA and the Committees of Correspondence.

And so forth. Read the rest of Trevor’s article. The point is that Moseley Braun, as well as those long-associated with her, cannot be viewed in any way as separate from Obama himself.

---

Ooopsss!!!: Almost simultaneously, less than an hour or so ago, the Chicago Sun-Times Mark Brown writes that PEBO has to get Burris, Blago’s pick to replace him in the Senate, to give up (or give in, however you’d like to put it) AND word arrives that the Senate has now decided to give up (or give in, however you’d like to put it) and seat Burris.

Brown wrote:

It’s time for President-elect Barack Obama to get off the sidelines and try to talk some sense to Roland Burris — or if that’s beneath him at this point, find somebody else who can.

The citizens of Obama’s home state, the ones who launched his political career and proudly backed his ascendance to the nation’s highest office, need his help.

Hint: That wasn’t ever gonna happen. It’s just NOT the Chicago Way.

Mercury News reports:

In a reversal, Senate Democrats now appear ready to let Roland Burris fill President-elect Barack Obama’s vacant seat.

After being rejected Tuesday when he tried to join the class of incoming freshmen senators, Burris is finding new support on Capitol Hill among Democratic leaders, the Associated Press reported.

Burris, who would become the Senate’s only black member, was blocked from taking the seat by Democrats who objected to an appointment by embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Byron York at NRO also reported Illinois Secretary of State, Jesse White (left), alleged to be an immovable force to Burris taking his rightful seat, was not so much of a stumbling block after all — or at least that’s what he now says:

Senate Democrats have based their refusal to seat Roland Burris on the refusal of the Illinois Secretary of State, Jesse White, to sign Burris’ certificate of appointment. Tuesday morning, Secretary of the Senate Nancy Erickson turned Burris away, saying Burris’ certification lacked White’s signature.

It’s an odd argument. Does the Illinois Secretary of State have the authority to veto decisions made by the governor? Can he do so for any reason he wants? Are there other areas in which this veto power exists?

Now Jesse White himself is trying to distance himself from the situation. “They could have seated him without my signature,” White told WGN Radio this morning. “My signature is not necessarily required in order for the Senate to place the gentleman in the seat that he was appointed to by Gov. Blagojevich…My signature is mostly ceremonial rather than being a point of law.”

“Do you feel like you’re the fall guy on this?” asked WGN’s John Williams. “The Senate conveniently has you to dodge their responsibility when they could have seated him.”

“You’re absolutely correct,” White said.

By the way, the highest-ranking African American in Congress, House majority whip Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) (right), “called Burris an ‘upstanding person’ and predicted that a meeting between the nominee and Democratic leaders later [today] will allow all parties to ‘reach an acceptable conclusion to all of this’.”

Let the speculation begin.

---

Visit often to check for updates and new brief articles.