In what can only be described as a sort-of-slow-motion about face, the Senate is now showing signs that it’s going to seat Roland Burris to take over President Elect Barack Obama’s Senate spot after all.
And, according to one report, the suggestion (a political offer they couldn’t refuse?) came from the Obama team.
Senate leaders began to clear the way for Roland Burris to take over President-elect Barack Obama’s vacant seat, saying they wanted the issue resolved quickly.
Burris met Wednesday with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Dick Durbin, a day after his paperwork was rejected at the opening of the 111th Congress.
They called the meeting ”positive” and indicated that the Senate would be open to seating Burris once legal hurdles are resolved and Burris clears the air over his appointment.
Senate officials in both parties, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly for Senate members, said there is a growing expectation on Capitol Hill that the saga will end with Burris being seated.
Senate officials say Burris’ appointment still has to be certified by Illinois’ secretary of state.
So the Senators just slept on it, met with Burris and decided they were initially wrong? Perhaps there was some of that. But The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein reports that idea may have come from a….higher source:
The apparent decision to seat Roland Burris came after aides to President-elect Barack Obama contacted senior Senate Democrats and suggested that they reverse course and accept Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s controversial appointment, according to a senior Dem congressional aide.
Just minutes after the decision to seat Burris was reported, Obama offered the veteran Illinois pol praise and promised a working relationship.
“That is a Senate matter,” he said of the news. “But I know Roland Burris, obviously he is from my home state. He is a fine public servant, if he gets seated then I am going to work with Roland Burris like all other senators to make sure that the people if Illinois and the people across the country are served.”
Confusion remains as to what will happen with Burris. While reports signaled his imminent seating, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the AP report was “wrong,” and that “there have been no decisions.”
Two impressions from this:
(1) The Obama folks have faced some prickly political issues, some of their own (inexperienced) making and some not.
(2) They do seem to be showing a strength on several fronts on damage control — whether it’s letting associates under a cloud exit quickly, soothing irked feelings (California Senator Dianne Feinstein, who almost sounded like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich complaining about Clinton not inviting him to an elite seat on the airplane when she complained about not hearing in advance about Obama CIA pick Leon Panetta) via phone calls, or trying to defuse escalating political dramas. Are we truly entering an era of consultation and negotiation versus political confrontation and escalation?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.