C'mon, Bucco. Give me a reference wherein President-elect Obama recommended the seating of Burris in the Senate--"made it happen", as you say.

I hate to say that everyone was outsmarted by the punk, crook Illinois governor, but that's the way it appears. What it boils down to is this...

• The Illinois Secretary of State has no legal authority to block an appointment made by the governor. His role is simply to verify the governor's signature and his legal authority to make the appointment, neither of which is in question. He is a sitting governor and at this point is not the subject of any criminal proceeding or indictment. Also, as the result of the Illinois Supreme Court refusing to hear a case alleging the governor's inability to perform, he is judged to be competent, as well.

• The U.S. Senate itself has no legal authority to refuse to seat a properly-nominated nominee of a state governor. They have procedures and rules wherein they can slow the seating down, but in the end they will be required to seat Burris. This is the opinion of virtually every lawyer who has been questioned or interviewed on the question.

• The President of the U.S. has no role whatsoever in the choice or seating of members of Congress. In this case, it's not even the President, but the President-Elect. He surely has no authority or means to force the seating of a U.S. Senator.

If you want to be critical of a party whose actions or inactions are resulting in the seating of Roland Burris, blame the Illinois legislature. They chose not to pass a bill requiring that the replacement of Barack Obama be the result of an open election. It was a Democratic legislature and it's pretty clear they made that decision in order to avoid any chance that a Republican replacement would be selected--however remote that chance would be in Illinois. Once they made that decision, Roland Burris was going to eventually be seted in the U.S. Senate--period. As many parties as wanted to make statements on whether or not Burris would be seated, but no one has any legal standing to prevent it.

So if you want to blame someone, at least blame the right party. It was the Illinois legislature who is responsible, not President-elect Obama!