Whatever happened to "Innocent until proven guilty?"
Whatever happened to this community displaying its commitment to rule of law?
Can we please get back to what matters and stop acting like unsupervised children?
For quite some time now, it has been made plain that the Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, leaves something to be desired. This was perhaps most apparent in October when a Rasmussen poll showed that only 4% (that is NOT a typo) of Illinois voters gave him their approval. George W. Bush, who operates at a whole other level of heinous (torture and death are beyond anything Blagojevich is accused of doing) still manages 20%s or 30%s in polls. So, the people of Illinois were making it plain for anybody who cared that there was a problem. The scope of the problem had perhaps not yet been made clear, but there was clearly a problem.
The existence of a problem, however, should not mean that we become like the kids in Lord of the Flies, which is what seems to be happening on a daily basis. Frustrating as it may be to people, Rod Blagojevich is still the Governor of Illinois. It is his right to nominate a replacement for Barack Obama even if you do not like him or his appointee. Blagojevich is, one hopes, innocent until proven guilty. This means that if he nominates someone to the Senate, instead of telling the world why it is not OK and that the Democrats should become obstructionist because it is so transparent that he is GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY, perhaps it would be wiser and more respectful to, I dunno, our Constitution and rule of law to simply acknowledge that he stinks and move on. That might be better than excoriating him daily for doing his job and trashing his nominee.
Roland Burris is imperfect. Then again, as I posted in a response to a couple of articles, so are Barack Obama and Dick Durbin. Obama, after all, helped push a $700B bailout package for the financials industry while trusting the Bush administration to do oversight. (Yeah, right.) I watched the video of him talking to the Senate and cringed. While I like and respect Durbin's policy positions, he sure gets wobbly-kneed sometimes. These men are imperfect, but they are still good people, and they are surely a LOT better than the GOP nincompoops who have damaged the treasury, started an unjust war, politicized everything from the judicial system to science in the classrooms, etc., etc., etc. Roland Burris is better than that, too. Shame on those who are trashing him.
But here's the really bad stuff: by publishing all these articles that say that Burris should not be seated in the Senate, what does that say about the dKos community? That we are better than the law? I am pretty sure that is not how the community feels about itself, and 99% of the time, the articles of this blog are above such malarkey. Add to that the reputation built by the blog for fairness and decency. It is extraordinarily disappointing to see that put at risk with articles such as these. Don't give the GOP a chance to kick back and pass the popcorn.
There is a reason that Patrick Fitzgerald has a job. Let him do it. It is not your job. Address the real issues of our day: health care, global warming, the economy, the war, etc. That is where the dKos community should be and where it can help, not hurt.