Burris was ready to do whatever was necessary
Senator not nearly the stand-up citizen he would have us believe
Roland Burris was willing to pay to play to become a U.S. senator. He just didn't have much to offer, and most important, he didn't want to get caught.
That's my seat-of-the-pants analysis of the transcript released Tuesday evening of a Nov. 13 conversation between Burris and Robert Blagojevich, our ex-governor's brother.
(NBC5)
The telephone discussion, captured on a FBI wiretap, shows the junior senator from Illinois to be not quite so venal as Rod Blagojevich himself, but not nearly the stand-up citizen he would have us believe.
Even so, the aspect of the wiretapped conversation that most calls into question Burris' ethics is not what he said so much as the fact that he failed to disclose it had taken place during his testimony to the Illinois House committee considering Blagojevich's impeachment.
While Burris may have forgotten the details of their talk by the time he went before state legislators, it could hardly have slipped his mind that less than two months earlier he had been on the phone practically begging to be chosen to replace Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate while promising to do what he could to get some money into the Blagojevich campaign coffers.
His omission only confirms what has been evident for some time now: With the crowning achievement of his political career within reach, Burris was willing to do whatever was necessary to reel in the big prize and deal with the consequences later.
Burris not only understood at the time he was being squeezed by the governor for campaign money, he told Robert Blagojevich, who was running the governor's fund-raising apparatus, that he worried about how it would look if he did raise money for the governor while pursuing the Senate seat.
". . . If I put on a fund-raiser now . . . it has so many negative connotations that Burris is trying to buy an appointment," Burris told the governor's brother.
". . . And if I do that," he later added, "I guarantee you that, that will get out and people said, oh, Burris is doing a fund-raiser and, and then Rod and I both gonna catch hell."
But Burris didn't want to close the door and take a chance on getting on the governor's bad side.
Instead, as the discussion proceeded, Burris told Robert Blagojevich he would:
1) Be willing to help with a fund-raiser if it was being hosted by some other Blagojevich supporter with whom Burris had worked in the past, in effect, someone to give him cover.
2) Ask his law partner, Timothy Wright, to raise money for the governor.
3) Make a personal donation to the governor's campaign and ask his lobbying partner Fred Lebed to do the same. No amount was mentioned, but Burris later noted that their lobbying/consulting practice was in financial distress.
At one point, Burris made his priorities crystal clear.
". . . God knows number one, I, I wanna help Rod. Number two, I also wanna, you know, hope I get a consideration to get that appointment," he said, adding, ". . . and however that goes, ah, it would dictate, ah, you know how the press treats it."
Ah. It certainly would.
While the whole weaselly tenor of the conversation between Burris and Robert Blagojevich is vintage Burris for those of us who have followed his career, it was our first extended peek into the inner sanctum of the governor's brother. He comes across in the transcript as fairly low-key in his pursuit of Burris' money, and even signals that he wants to "manage expectations" -- which I took as a pretty clear signal meaning "don't get your hopes up for the Senate seat." As we know, priorities changed after the governor's arrest.
What's said on the tape is somewhat open to interpretation. Burris has his own spin, and I encourage you to go online to read the entire transcript for yourself. The tape itself is expected to be made public today and will no doubt receive plenty of airtime nationwide for those still following the Blagojevich affair.
As far as whether or not this qualifies as a Senate ethics violation, I don't think it would rise to the level of anything that would justify removing Burris before the end of his term.
Burris wasn't offering enough money to buy the Senate seat, only enough to keep his name in the running if the selection was going to be made within the normal parameters of politics, not the outright auction in which federal prosecutors allege Blagojevich was engaged.
Assuming this is the worst of it, the voters of Illinois can certainly handle cleaning up for themselves at next year's election.