As I’ve been predicting since the beginning, and in defiance of Harry Reid’s curious statements in the recent past, Roland Burris has cleared the last hurdles and will apparently be seated as the next U.S. Senator from Illinois later this week.

WASHINGTON–Roland Burris won his battle to succeed Barack Obama as the junior senator from Illinois this afternoon as Senate Democratic leaders dropped their objections and said they expect him to be seated this week.

The agreement came after Senate lawyers said Burris met the chamber’s rules and could be sworn in.

“Barring objections from Senate Republicans, we expect Senator-designee Burris to be sworn in and formally seated later this week,” said a joint statement from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin.

Let’s be clear. There’s one big winner here and one minor winner. There is also one big loser and one minor loser. The big winner, obviously, is Roland Burris. He had a winning hand going into this from day one, having both the United States Constitution and Illinois State election law on his side. It’s a prize he desired and it looks as if he gets to ring the bell. A minor winner is Rod Blagojevich, who succeeded in making a Senate appointment and continuing the appearance that he was going about gubernatorial business as usual in defiance of his entire party at both the state and national level. The “Who me?” defense is pretty much his only gambit in the impeachment hearings. I can’t say as I believe it will get him off the hook, but he’s stacking his chips as well as he can and has managed to poke a finger in the eye of the most powerful Democrats in the nation. (For a complete timeline of the fumbles by those opposing Burris, see this concise group of links from Allahpundit at Hot Air.)

The big loser in this tale is Harry Reid. He’s managed to be trapped by people who appeared to have no cards to play and left looking the fool. (At least twice.) He may be the leader of a surging Democratic majority in the Senate, but he couldn’t outwit a Governor caught on the nation’s best selling episode of Politicians Gone Wild nor could he make his blustering threats against Burris hold water. The minor loser is our President Elect who jumped into the fray too soon when he should have simply said that he was a private citizen and would let Illinois play out the drama as per their own wishes and laws.

Welcome aboard, Senator Burris. I have no clue what your qualifications really are or your future holds, but the game was well played, sir.