Chicago Tribune Names State Senators Terry Link and Michael Bond to the "Blagojevich 26"; Plus, the Saga of Roland Burris; Why Dan Seals, Why Now?

Well, here's a list that no one among Illinois Politicians really wants to be on: the Chicago Tribune's list of the "Blagojevich 26," which is a list of the State Senators who earlier last year voted against a measure to add a recall provision for the governor to the state constitution. Lake County's two Democratic state senators, Terry Link and his 'mini-me,' Michael Bond, both made the Tribune's list of the governor's enablers.

Swell. We're definitely very proud here in Lake County to have these two elected officials to thank, in part, for the current disaster in state government.

The "Blagojevich 26": Now THAT's going to look good on some opposition campaign literature.

THE SAGA OF WOULD-BE SENATOR ROLAND BURRIS: Well, Mr. Burris is headed to Washington, D.C., where most news reports indicate that he will show up on Tuesday and attempt to be seated, and most reports also agree that the Senate Democrats will refuse to seat him. Mr. Burris apparently has said that he does not intend to cause a fuss, but that's clearly what the Senate Dems are preparing for. You can read much more about this whole debacle elsewhere, but for my money, what I want to know is why no one is calling for the impeachment of Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White for refusing to sign the appointment paperwork. It's his duty, after all, and almost everyone seems to agree that the law gives White no discretion in the matter. It's strictly an administerial duty, and is already the subject of a lawsuit by Burris. Thank goodness that White is black, so that White's refusal to perform his duty, thereby temporarily stymieing Burris' entrance to the U.S. Senate, can't be painted as racism by folks like Bobby Rush, who set a new world's record for claiming pre-emptive racism against anyone who dared to oppose Burris' appointment.

Rush was quoted by the AP as saying that the U.S. Senate is the "last bastion of plantation politics" and that "we are just faced with a hard-headed room of people in the Senate who want to keep an African-American out of the Senate." Come on. Does anyone really think those that are opposed to the appointment of Roland Burris are against it because he's black? As we have said before, it's stupid claims like this by African-American leaders that tend to dilute the attention paid to claims of real racism when it happens. Apparently Bobby Rush never got the "Boy Who Cried Wolf" read to him when he was younger.

WHAT'S UP WITH DAN SEALS? YOU LISTENING, SENATOR REID? My silly Google Alerts keep going off lately with the mention of Dan Seals' name in relation to the Obama senate seat.

You remember Dan Seals, right? The guy who has never been elected to so much as dog catcher and was labled a "carpetbagger" by Roll Call, who lost the 10th District Congressional race to Mark Kirk (twice), who ran out of money at the end of his last campaign and was reduced to pitful begging, who used a 9/11 conspiracy theorist in one of his campaign commercials, who couldn't make up his mind on the financial bailout package, who cuddled up to the much-investigated and seemingly destined for indictment Charlie Rangel. Remember now? Yes, the Dan Seals who misleadingly claimed to be a adjunct professor at Northwestern University before he ever got in front of a student (and was chastised by real professors), who took campaign money from convicted felon and disgraced former Congressman Dan Rostenkowski in front of Seals' night class at NU (once Seals finally started as a lecturer), the Dan Seals who caused massive traffic jams and was fined by the Village of Lincolnshire over an ill-conceived gas-for-votes stunt, and who famously said that in the event of an attack on Israel, you come down on the side of "Peace". Yep, that Dan Seals.

Well, his name was mentioned on Politico.com a few days ago, and somehow that has morphed into speculation that Senate Dem Leader Harry Reid is prepping Dan Seals behind the scenes to step into Obama's shoes once the Dem powers-that-be can get rid of that pesky Blagojevich and his star-crossed appointee Burris.

Those that are better informed seem to think this notion is ridiculous, and it's not just me. Most of the serious news articles that discuss the issue of whether Reid pressured Blago behind-the-scenes to make a specific appointment seem to point to him favoring Tammy Duckworth or Lisa Madigan.

So, I'm relatively sure that Seals is thankfully still relegated to the dustbin of Illinois politics, where he belongs, and that the current spate of Google Alerts bearing his name seem to be outgrowths of an errant mention by Politico. Note the Politico appeared to use Seals' name as an example of a type of candidate that might be appealing and successful, not that the Pup was Harry Reid's favored son. They obviously didn't look at Seals' vapid mug as shown here at Team America, or they might have thought twice about suggesting that this guy could ever survive any serious vetting process.

Ugh, what a laugh that would be for us here in the 10th District! I do admit that I got a few yucks tonight in doing this post and strolling down the TA archives regarding the mis-adventures of Dan Seals.

Senator Reid, hope your folks are TA readers before you do something really stupid...

UPDATE: Here's a link to a D.C. blog with some video of Harry Reid discussing the issue. The blog suggests that Reid is far more concerned about positioning the Dems for not losing the seat to a guy like Mark Kirk, than Reid is concerned with following the law. Big shock.

UPDATED x2: Here's a Pioneer Press article that clarifies, as we suspected, that Seals' recent filing as a candidate for the 1oth District race in 2010 (mentioned in comments) was simply a campaign finance paperwork issue, and not a committment to run. He'd be starting from almost zero funds, if the news article is correct about his campaign bank balance only being slightly above $5,000.

Also Randy Blaser at the Pioneer Lake Affect blog takes note of TA's scathing diatribe against the Pup, and makes fun of Seals to boot. Glad someone out there is getting the message.