Karl Klockars

"I do solemnly swear to totally eff something up, for your entertainment."

The firestorms have pretty much quit raging over the Roland Burris Should Step Down flap from a couple weeks ago, and so far, the state hasn’t imploded yet from his poor leadership.  From the Peanut Gallery, I hear the hollering that says “give him another few minutes!” but I don’t think we’ll see the end of Illinois with another few months of Burris’ senatorial career.

That said – if anyone ever has any political problems, just get the governor to suggest a 50% income tax hike.  That’ll get everyone just freaked out enough for about 10 days to 2 weeks and you can get back to living a normal life.  Raising taxes is about the biggest shiny thing you can flash in front of the media to distract them, other than celebrity murders or sex scandals, or both.  If you could combine sex with tax hikes, the media would probably explode with excitement.  Gov. Quinn, if you can figure out a way to make that happen, please do.

But now we’re already off topic.  I’m trying to explain why we need to keep Rollie around for a while, and thankfully it ties into our tangent.  See, we need our fix.  We have been so high on Rod Blagojevich China White for so long, that to have the Ex-Governor off the scene now might cause a detox so painful that it will be the end of all of us.

The Rod Blagojevich story was pure dope, shot straight into the eyeballs of not only the press, but to everyone in the state who ever thought for a second about politics.  And even if you didn’t care, who could avoid being sucked in by lines like:

“If [Illinois] isn’t the most corrupt state in the United States, it’s certainly one hell of a competitor.”

And who could forget:

“There’s politics and there’s crime, and sometimes when people get in trouble is when they start to blur those lines.”

And everyone’s all-time favorite:

“In the governor’s words, quote, ‘Fire all those bleeping people. Get them the bleep out of there. And get us some editorial support,’ close quote,” he said. “And the bleeps are not really bleeps.”

That’s just magic. When someone says that in the other aisle at Jewel, you stop and listen.  When it’s a federal prosecutor talking about the lead official in one of the biggest states in the nation, you’ve got some seriously crazy awesomeness going on.  You don’t just recover from that with a couple press conferences and a Pat Quinn administration.

"Oh bother. A senatorial ethics committee."

This is why we need Roland around.  We need to have his semi-competence, his Winnie-the-Pooh voice and his please-kick-me demeanor to stick around for a while.  We as a state won’t be able to handle the sanity, the intelligence and the reasonability of a Pat Quinn administration.  Smart government is boring and low key.  Can we go back to that after the wifebeater politics of the G-Rod era?

Look at it this way:  Roland Burris is not going to vote against anything that the President puts out in front of the Senate.  It’s a 100%, down-the-line, easy vote for the President’s policies.  Easy-peasy.  And any legislation that we need introduced in terms of things that will help the state of Illinois, well, I trust Dick Durbin to handle all of that for the next dozen months or so.  By then we’ll be into the primary season and nothing will be getting done anyways.

I want to see him in Hells Angels colors. Someone, quick, get the Photoshop.

Until then, we need someone to help wean us off the high levels of insanity that Rod Blagojevich introduced us to.  Without Roland Burris to take us down to a reasonable level, we’d be stuck without anything to wring our hands over.  What would we be left with?  Mark Kirk?  Peter Roskam?  Sakes to Pete, we’d be stuck with that GOP guy who got caught with “female friends” in his basement and got beat up by a Guitar Hero controller.  Would you want to just be stuck with that for the next 2 months?

Of course not.  This is what we’re dealing with, and we should be thanking whatever deities we subscribe to every time Roland Burris steps up to a microphone.

I will accept Roland Burris’ continued presence in state politics for these few reasons.  Barring that, we need news about Pat Quinn’s membership in an outlaw biker club, or running dogfight rings, or the like.  One of you better not let me down.