(Don’t) Stand By Me

By Jennifer J. Foster

Published: June 2, 2009

Last week we discussed U.S. Sen. Roland “I-cannot-tell-a-lie” Burris and his perfectly good explanation for his incomplete testimony before two investigative bodies looking into corruption charges against former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

I said then:

Democrats in the U.S. Senate have realized the millstone this guy is on their caucus and the mistake they made in seating him. Don’t expect it to be much longer before they have a strong candidate recruited to challenge him in 2010.

They know that the sooner they can get rid of the double-talking, half-truth-telling, Blagojevich-appointed junior senator from Illinois, the better.

Well, the Associated Press had a piece yesterday about the “unprecedented” outcast status Burris has achieved:

Colleagues, with little to say to him besides hello, beat a path around him on the Senate floor. None of the Senate’s tribal customs of collegiality and acceptance—backslapping, hugging, arm-touching and collaborating on legislation—are bestowed upon Burris. The 71-year-old freshman has not been taken under a wing of a veteran senator.

Burris often can be found standing between colleagues otherwise engaged, seeing only the backs of their heads.

The other senator from Illinois, Majority Whip Dick Durbin, did the senatorial equivalent of telling him to resign. Burris refused, denying all wrongdoing in a suspected pay-to-play scheme. Even so, Democrats made clear they will not support him if he runs next year for the seat that President Barack Obama won in 2004 ...

The treatment Senate colleagues are giving Burris is to just turn away, as if he almost doesn’t exist.

The AP story is full of good quotes, as most things Blagojevich-related usually are. For example, Burris’s political consultant attributes this poor treatment as nothing more than a vast left-wing conspiracy. And the reporter explains how race played a huge role—perhaps the only role—in the way senators came around to agreeing to seat him, against their better judgment:

Democrats initially saw no upside to allowing Burris to be seated, citing the Constitution’s requirement that each chamber of Congress determines its own membership. In the end, they allowed House members, chiefly Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., to force their hand. Rush dared them to turn away a man who would be the Senate’s only black member and alienate a critical Democratic constituency just as the party had delivered the nation’s first black president.

Teeth were gritted; Burris was seated.

Yay for colorblind politics.

And, of course, however poorly Senate Democrats are tolerating him, they are tolerating him much better, and for obvious reasons, than they would if he wasn’t Democrat No. 59 with Al Franken waiting in the wings.

But my favorite quote of this story, and perhaps in modern memory, is this one from Ross K. Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University and author of a book about internal Senate relations:

Burris’ “colleagues would view a too-close association with him as being a kind of contamination,“ Baker added, “in a sense that he personally is an inoffensive guy but he’s a carrier of the pathogen of Blagojevich.“

“He’s a carrier of the pathogen of Blagojevich”—wow, it’s visual and timely and political and profound, all at the same time.

Yep, that’s my favorite political quote since James Carville said of Howard Dean when the latter was running for president (shortly after THE SCREAM), “That man doesn’t appreciate the value of the unspoken thought.“

It’s hard to beat the Ragin’ Cajun. But Baker comes close.

The pathogen of Blagojevich. I bet that sound bite will stick with you a while.

Now, go grab your hand sanitizer. You know you want to.