PrintJanuary 3, 2009
Harry Reid pressured Blago to not appoint blacks to Senate
Noel Sheppard of Newsbusters reveals an amazing and unremarked-upon bit of reportage in the Chicago Sun-Times today.
Days before Gov. Blagojevich was charged with trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder, top Senate Democrat Harry Reid made it clear who he didn't want in the post: Jesse Jackson, Jr., Danny Davis or Emil Jones.Rather, Reid called Blagojevich to argue he appoint either state Veterans Affairs chief Tammy Duckworth or Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, sources told the Chicago Sun-Times.
The Sun-Times doesn't bother noticing that the three rejected names all belong to Aftican-Americans. Add in Roland Burris, whom Reid also opposes, and you get four blacks rejected by Reid, with 2 whites meeting the Majority Leader's approval. Noel quite properly notes:
Imagine for a moment the Senate was currently controlled by Republicans, and the white male majority leader advised Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich not to pick a black candidate to fill president-elect Barack Obama's vacated seat instead pressuring the governor to choose between two white candidates, do you think this would get some media attention?Probably every hour on the hour until the white majority leader was forced to apology and conceivably resign, right?
