Never Say Never

According to Livesteez, Roland Burris wasn’t surprised one bit that he clinched the Senate seat:

U.S. Senate officials on Monday approved Roland Burris to fill the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. The new Illinois senator is expected to be sworn into office later this week. “I really never doubted that I would be seated,” Burris said in a nationally broadcast television interview Tuesday. “It was just a matter of going through the process and making sure that the Senate rules were abided by,” he said, reports The Huffington Post.

The decision was a major about-face by the Democratic leadership, which initially vowed that the December appointment would not stand because Blagojevich had been arrested on charges of having earlier tried to sell the seat.

Obama had backed that decision. But he later agreed with Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid on the need to find “an amicable solution” to remove the matter as a possible distraction to a busy Democratic legislative agenda, a party aide said.

On Friday, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled the appointment of Burris was valid. But Democrats said they would not seat him until the appointment was certified by Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White. While White refused to certify the appointment, he signed a statement after the court ruling certifying that the governor’s appointment letter was legally filed with the state, according to Reuters.com. That appeared to satisfy the secretary of the Senate, who had last week rejected Burris’ credentials as incomplete.

“The secretary of the Senate has determined that the new credentials presented today on behalf of Mr. Burris now satisfy Senate Rules and validate his appointment,” Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and Assistant Senate Democratic Leader Dick Durbin said in a joint statement. With Obama set to be sworn in as the first black U.S. president on January 20, Burris would replace him as the only black senator.

Well, it looks like funny business as usual in the world of politics. This attempt to attach negativity to the Obama name was thwarted - for now. Shady indeed.