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Reid caved, America suffers

by tdaxp ~ February 18th, 2009

Last month, I was temporarily impressed with Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid, when he vowed to use the Senate’s power to hold up the confirmation of Roland Burris, appointed by former Governor Blagoevich. But Reid, as those who thought less of Reid than I did expected, caved to identity politics and made Burris the junior Senator from Illinoise. Burris’s vote became critical for the Obama stimulus. And now, everyone is regretting it:

Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) must go. – washingtonpost.com
From the moment that Mr. Burris was selected, he strove to portray himself as a blameless public servant. The sad pictures of Mr. Burris being cast out into the rain by the Democratic leadership of the Senate, which initially refused to seat him, turned public opinion in his favor. Mr. Burris got his seat. But this latest revelation makes a mockery of his professions of no quid pro quo. It is a violation of the public trust. The people of Illinois have suffered enough. Mr. Burris should resign.

If Reid had kept his word, Burris would not be a Senator, Illinois would not be embarrassed again, and the Obama Stimulus would not have passed in its current form.

As I said, Tammy Duckworth would have been a better choice.

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6 Responses to Reid caved, America suffers

  1. Eddie
    February 18th, 2009 at 8:02 am

    Its all a crazed plot by Blago so he can reappear in the public spotlight to push for cheap drugs for his people in Illinois… oh wait, he already gave that speech.

    Have an election to fill the seat in two weeks.

    Tammy Duckworth is working for the VA now…..

  2. Seerov
    February 18th, 2009 at 8:08 am

    “But Reid, as those who thought less of Reid than I did expected, caved to identity politics” (Dan tdaxp)

    Besides “violating the public trust” this strengthens the legitimacy of identity politics in this country. And this isn’t “more of the same” either. This is significant, as it proves that identity politics pays off even at the highest levels of government.

    This is why I laughed when people suggested that Obama represented a “post-racial” America. Its the exact opposite, Obama represents the potential beginning of an America where race is Uber Alles. If this keeps up, it just a matter of time before whites get in on it.

    Identity politics causes instability, which interferes with the economic and geopolitical goals of the country.

  3. tdaxp
    February 18th, 2009 at 12:18 pm

    Eddie,

    I hadn’t heard about Duckworth at the VA. [1] That’s good.

    The ‘progressives’ don’t like her, which is better. The story from Chicago Progressive Examiner is currently down [2], but here’s the text from Google cache [3].

    Yet another Illinoisan is about to be elevated to the sphere of federal power: Tammy Duckworth, director of the state’s Department of Veterans Affairs, was nominated on Tuesday by President Barack Obama to serve as an assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The worst thing local media has found to say about her is that she may be a little too cozy with the political bogeyman du jour – deposed Gov. Pompadour.

    I don’t have anything negative to say about her person, but I’m compelled to recap how her political debut was a sore point for many Chicago-area progressives. While her recovery from catastrophic injuries in Iraq is a deep personal accomplishment, as a political entity she is a creation of Rep. Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, the key Dem operatives who engineered her 2006 run in the 6th Dist. primaries. Duckworth had no political experience and didn’t even live in the district, but what kind of heartless schlob could not vote for a woman who lost both of her legs and partial use of one arm in the service of her country?

    That was how the script was supposed to play out. But Duckworth was running against Christine Cegelis, who made a good showing against long-time GOP incumbent Henry Hyde in 2004 and had built a strong grassroots following with a progressive platform that included strong criticism of the Iraq war. Duckworth’s platform followed Emanuel’s centrist approach, and she favored a “stay-the-course” approach to Iraq. The party establishment was urged to rally around Duckworth as the candidate most likely to turn the staunchly Republican 6th Dist. blue, and for the most part the appeal worked: among those who publicly backed her was a certain freshman senator who was already the subject of presidential buzz.

    Former presidential contender John Kerry also stumped for Duckworth, but despite the high-wattage push she won the primaries by a scant four percentage points. Cegelis was very graceful in her concession, but many of her backers – including some who didn’t even live in the district – felt betrayed by the party leadership. As an example of how deep the rift between mainstream and progressive Democrats grew, in October 2006 Chicago PDA activist Betsy Schonitzer was kicked out of the self-described grassroots organization Illinois DemNet for refusing to campaign for Duckworth.

    Schonitzer wrote in an e-mail:

    It didn’t matter that I was planning to work on the Dan Seals campaign (Dan Seals is a congressional candidate with a strong anti-war position). Illinois DemNet plans to focus their campaign efforts on the Tammy Duckworth campaign and the head organizer told me that he found my resistance to work for Tammy Duckworth unacceptable. [...] I don’t agree with Tammy Duckworth’s position that we should not have a timetable to withdraw our troops.

    Some disgruntled Cegelis backers refused to vote for Duckworth, so her ultimate loss to Republican Pete Roskam by two percentage points may be a lesson on the dangers of alienating the grassroots – and some saw the fact that Emanuel took a black eye in his own backyard in an election night when he was widely credited with delivering Congress to the Democrats as poetic justice.

    But Duckworth soon found another patron in former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who nominated her to run the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs less than three weeks after her electoral defeat. And unless you just crawled out from under a rock, surely you must know that her early patrons, Emanuel and Axelrod, are part of Obama’s inner circle. The sight of President Obama and Duckworth holding a Veterans Day wreath-laying ceremony at Soldier Field a week after his White House win was a clear indication that bigger things lied in wait for her.

    Sure enough, Duckworth was soon a rumored contender for U.S. Veterans Affairs director. That nomination went to retired General Eric K. Shinseki, but the position she’s been offered would essentially make her the department’s public face.

    That’s the known history on Duckworth. What we ought to be asking now is: what do the affected parties – local veterans and military families – think about her service at the Illinois VA and her suitability for the national post? I’ll ask around and let you know.

    It includes a video of Obama helping Duckworth walk at a wreath-laying ceremony at Soldier Field [4].

    Seerov,

    The top Democrat’s views of affirmative action don’t extend to the First Lady’s wardrobe. [5]

    [1] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28995926/
    [2] http://www.examiner.com/x-2929-Chicago-Progressive-Examiner~y2009m2d5-How-the-grassroots-rose-against-Duckworth
    [3] http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:cP4fwYg6pjsJ:www.examiner.com/x-2929-Chicago-Progressive-Examiner~y2009m2d5-How-the-grassroots-rose-against-Duckworth+how+the+grassroots+rose+against+duckworth&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a
    [4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmvheXMaZlA&eurl=http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:cP4fwYg6pjsJ:www.examiner.com/x-2929-Chicago-Progressive-Examiner~y2009m2d5-How-&feature=player_embedded
    [5] http://www.kxmc.com/News/Nation/324480.asp

  4. tdaxp
    February 18th, 2009 at 12:21 pm

    A PS for Seerov: AG Holder: we’re a ‘nation of cowards’ [1]

    But this, I assume it means Obama’s DOJ means that not pushing the left line of race is cowardly.

    [1] http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/18999.html

  5. Seerov
    February 18th, 2009 at 3:51 pm

    “Holder said that the country is now a “fundamentally different” place than it used to be, but that the nation “still had not come to grips with its racial past, nor has it been willing to contemplate, in a truly meaningful way, the diverse future it is fated to have.” (Holder)

    I can never understand what people mean by saying “we need to come to grips with our racial past?” I’m pretty sure this means the transferring of resources from the people with white skins to people with black skins, but I’m not really sure?

    I guess I can sum up all my feelings regarding identity politics by asking one simple question:

    “What exactly do you people want?”

  6. tdaxp
    February 20th, 2009 at 6:45 am

    Seerov,

    They are seeking ‘economic rent,’ to turn their political power into cash and the things that cash can buy. [1]

    Blacks tend to be underskilled and undereducated [2]. The market-price for black wages is relatively low. However, through political organization, blacks can increase the amount of capital they extract from the system. This approach goes back at least a century, with the reliance on ‘exceptiona men’ who can organize the extraction of wealth from soceity. [3] Another approach, that of education blacks so that they obtain power and do not need to rely on welfare-like rent payments, is now rather unfashionable among the left. [4]

    [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_rent
    [2] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2009/02/19/academic-inferiority-its-recognition-and-treatment.html
    [3] http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=174
    [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booker_T._Washington#Politics

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