The Political Whore

From our sister blog, News Bites, at the Chicago Reader, comes a good wrap-up of the story gripping that city and making onto the third or fourth story on the morning news shows: the smoking gun in the case of Senator Roland Burris and whether his appointment by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich is tainted:

The Sun-Times and Tribune both ran partial transcripts Wednesday of a conversation between Roland Burris and Robert Blagojevich last November 13 about the Senate seat president-elect Obama was vacating and Burris longed to be appointed to.

But the transcript in the Tribune ends at roughly the point where the Sun-Times’s transcript begins. As a result, the Tribune version of the conversation supports the idea that Burris did nothing improper — an impression reinforced by the headline to the page-one story accompanying the transcript: “Burris talks cash, Senate on recording / Senator: Wiretap backs his denials of pay to play.”

The Tribune transcript has Burris making it clear to the brother of the then-governor: “I’m very much interested in, in trying to replace Obama,” and then fretting about appearances. Burris says, “I’m a high-profile person….I’m trying to figure out how in the hell, and since you called me I will be honest with you….And I’m trying to figure out how to deal with this and still be in the consideration for the appointment….And, and if I do that I guarantee you that, that will get out and people said, ‘Oh, Burris is doing a fundraiser,’ and, and then Rod and I both gonna catch hell….And if I do get appointed that means I bought it.”

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