(Outside of “Great Moments” I don’t like to dump pics/videos/whatever without comment, but this was so delicious to me, probably because like every other fourth grader in 1998 I was obssed with Pokemon, I couldn’t help but pass it along.)

I truly do not care for Roland Burris. Like a Catholic priest, he just rubs me the wrong way; I can’t really explain it. I salute the man for his many years of public service, for that I suppose I am grateful. But he strikes me as a thirsty son of a bitch. He campaigned for the position, even though he claimed he didn’t,  even though he wasn’t one of the 5 senators originally considered in the running. I know, legally, he meets all the qualifications that are required of a senate-designate. But he’s such an asshole. His ego grows ad infinitum, despite the fact that Illinois voters have repeatedly rejected him. This is a man that has said one day he hopes Illinois will be known as the “Land of Burris” opposed to the “Land of Lincoln.” This is a man that often speaks in the third person. I can’t say it any other way: The. Man. Is. Thirsty. To him a seat in the Senate is nothing more than a notch in his bedpost. Except literally. His tombstone, embossed with the word “Trailblazer,” is just waiting for “US Senator” to be added.

And I don’t fault the man for wanting good things for himself. I do. We all do. But we have rejected him. He has thrice run for governor, each with declining success.  Twenty years ago he attempted to run for Senate, but couldn’t even garner his party’s nomination. Oh, and in 1993, he helped organize Chicago’s first Gun-Turn-in-Day. Sounds great, right? Except he didn’t even turn in his own gun. Wait…what? He was a Comptroller from 1979-1991, but got bored, so in 1994 he ran for Governor. And again failed to win his party’s nomination. Desperate, he ran for mayor of Chicago and, as you may have guessed, lost. He was also Attorney General from 1991-1995. A position he wasn’t suited for (much like this senate seat…) Quoth:

In 1985  19-year old Rolando Cruz was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death along with a co-defendant in a DuPage county Circuit Court, for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of a 10-year old child. In 1992, Assistant Attorney General Mary Brigid Kenney, whom Burris had assigned to fight Cruz’s appeal, sent Burris a memo identifying numerous errors in the investigation and trial in Cruz’s initial conviction, and refused to participate in upholding what she considered to be a wrongful conviction. Burris ignored Kenney’s warnings, and she resigned in protest, writing to Burris, “I was being asked to help execute an innocent man… Unfortunately, you have seen fit to ignore the evidence in this case”. In September 1995, DNA showed that neither Cruz nor his co-defendant were the contributors of the semen found at the crime scene, thus exonerating them. Cruz was fully pardoned by Governor George Ryan in 2002, leading Ryan to declare a moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois, asserting that the system was “fraught with error”.

And this man thinks he’s a “trailblazer?”

After an abysmal four year period as Attorney General, Burris again sought (and failed to receive) the Democratic nomination for Governor in 1998 and 2002 . In 1998, Burris, no doubt throwing a hissy fit over his blaring unpopularity, called his Democratic primary opponents — Jim Burns, Glenn Poshard (who eventually won the nomination) and John Schmidt —  “non-qualified white boys”.

This is a man that does not deserve to be a Senator. This is a man that, as Illinois citizens, we do not want as our Senator. But go ahead, Roland, emblazon your tombstone with “US SENATOR” just make sure to include the asterisk. Not elected by the people of the State of Illinois.