While the Burris affair seems to be settled now, it is interesting to look back on it and see what can be learned from the handling of the whole matter.

The first lesson to draw from the whole affair is that the Democrats are hardly unbeatable. Their first concern in this whole matter was to preserve Obama's seat for their party, despite the Blagojevich scandal, and yet they did a miserable job it. First calling for a special election, then dropping that once they realized the weakness of their party, they then forgot to take any steps to strip the governor of his power to appoint. However, once he exercised that power they realized that a Blagojevich appointment was almost a guarantee of a Republican upset in the next election and so they cried foul yet again. If there is any lesson to draw it is to ignore those Republican defeatists who are painting Democrats as unbeatable. In this incident alone they showed several times that they are as prone to catastrophic mistakes as any Republican.

More interesting, however, is the lesson we can draw about how the Democrats view government. From this affair it is clear that the Democrats view absolute majority as a blank check, that they take their control of the executive and legislative branch as giving them total power, unchecked by any consideration of rule fo law.

Just look at their efforts to refuse to seat Burris. Yes, the Senate has the right to refuse to seat anyone who fails to meet constitutional requirements, that does not mean they can refuse to seat anyone. Just think about it for a moment and you can see why. Any given year 33 to 34 seats are filled in the senate. If a single party controls the remaining 66 or 67 seats, what is to prevent them from simply refusing to seat those elected to new seats by the opposition party? The unlimited ability to refuse to seat a senator would amount to a perpetual majority for whatever party happens to control the senate at the time of the next election.

Of course there are other considerations as well. For example, the fact that the selection of senators is a state power, and one over which the federal government is supposed to exercise no control. As I wrote before, if the Senate is allowed to override state election decisions without constitutional justification, what is to prevent them from selecting their own successors? Or selecting their own presidential choice? If the state decision is to be subject to the federal government's approval, then what grounds would we have to object to such an exercise of power?

Of course, state Democrats tried a similar trick. Deciding that control of the apparatus of government means they do not need to abide by the rule of law, they tried to invalidate the nomination of Burris through two tricks. First, by arguing that Blagojevich was under investigation. However, as the Democrats love to remind us about each and every criminal, a man is "innocent until proven guilty", so an investigation strips an elected official of none of his powers. And, even if he had been convicted, he still would have lost none of his powers. Despite the "bad message" it might send, a man who has been elected to office continues to exercise that office until impeached, even if he is convicted, even if he is sentenced. Unless they eventually impeach Blagojevich, or he resigns, even a conviction would not remove his powers as governor*. And so they tried their second approach, which amounted to saying "doesn't matter, we still will reject him". As they could not argue "we don't want him because it will cost our party the seat", they simply offered no argument. There was some mumbling about "tainted selections", but basically they asked the secretary of state to refuse to certify Burris without any reason offered.

As anyone could anticipate, that failed to work.

And so, unable to use brute political force to overcome the rule of law**, the Democrats, especially in the Senate, started to look for a way to save face. And so they came up with the still illegal procedure of "allowing" Burris to take his seat after he has been vetted by his colleagues. As I said, there is no legal precedent for this, and the senate has no authority to refuse to seat him, and thus has no authority to demand an interview. However, as Burris is a Democrat I am sure he will go along with this face-saving exercise, being called a "good man" by Reid and submitting to a nominal inquisition in order to take his seat.

I wish Burris had been a Republican, or a Democrat with some principles. It would have been interesting to watch someone refuse the interrogation and to see what new face saving compromise arose.

But, unfortunately, we will never know. Burris is not the man to stand on principle, and so the sham star chamber will go forward, Reid and company will declare him free of taint, and this story will fade into the background. At least until the Democrats try once again to substitute majority power for the rule of law.

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* And, of course, the Democrats do not want to impeach Blagojevich. They may do it if forced, but not until Obama is safely in office. However, they would much prefer a quiet resignation, as an impeachment gives the Republicans, and disaffected Democrats, in Illinois the chance to ask troubling questions, questions which could bring up scandals the majority would rather remain quiet. (This is not partisan, either party prefers to keep its dirty laundry hidden. It just happens that this scandal is a Democrat one. However, Illinois has seen scandals in both parties in recent memory.)

** Despite the willingness of the public to ignore the extra-constitutional nature of many political actions, they do tend to balk at outright ignorance of the law. They may be willing to see the law bent beyond recognition, but the use of pure brute force does tend to alarm them.