Clarence Page, Dallas Morning News
- White guilt has exhausted itself, President-elect Barack Obama once wrote. Well, not so fast. His former opponent U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush apparently thinks there’s still some life left in it.
What else can we make of the South Side Chicago Democratic congressman’s backing of Roland Burris, who has been appointed to Obama’s old Senate seat by a governor who is out on bail.
Dreamers hoped Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich would go quietly from office after his Dec. 9 arrest for federal corruption charges that include his allegedly trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat to the highest bidder.
Rush, a former leader of the Illinois Black Panther Party, used to sound as troubled by that as other Democratic lawmakers did, until Blagojevich named Burris, a former Illinois attorney general and fellow African-American. Then things changed. In a Blagojevich news conference to announce Burris, Rush said he was supporting Burris essentially for one reason: the Senate needs a black member and even the scandalized Blago’s man will do.
