'I Am the Senator, and It Sounds Good'

Doesn't sound like Roland Burris is going anywhere. This should be fun.

Roland Burris suggested he would challenge an effort to block his appointment to the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama, but said he's confident Senate Democrats will relent and let him take the job.

"We think they will come around and recognize that the appointment is legal and valid and I am the junior Senator from Illinois," the former Illinois attorney general said in an interview at his office here.

He spoke Wednesday as it became clear that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich offered the post to at least one other African-American politician, and as U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald sought more time to seek an indictment against the governor—and perhaps widen a five-year-old corruption case that already has resulted in felony convictions.

Gov. Blagojevich, facing federal corruption charges, named Mr. Burris on Tuesday as his choice for the Senate seat that the governor is accused of having tried to sell. Senate Democrats have vowed to block Mr. Burris's appointment, citing the allegations against Gov. Blagojevich.

Mr. Burris, 71 years old, brushed off the opposition in a 25-minute interview in which aides called him "senator" and he gamely argued that he'd make a good representative of his state. "From South Beloit to Cairo, from Galena to Zion, East St. Louis to Lawrenceville, I know this state. I know its people," he said.

He also questioned—as have several legal scholars—the Senate's legal right to keep him from taking the Senate seat. "By what authority can [Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid] deny a governor carrying out his constitutional duty?" Mr. Burris said.

"I am the senator, and it sounds good," he said. "This is what I love to do. I tried to be governor not once, not twice, but three times. I'm giving up a lot of money to go to the Senate, OK? I'm taking a pay cut."

Burris is taking the effort to court. Is there anything that can legally stop it?

Probably not.

Maybe the Democrats ought to cut their losses and just seat Burris. After all, he's more qualified than Barack Obama ever was to represent Illinois in the Senate and with just a few months effort he'll achieve more than Obama ever did as a Senator. Heck, you never know. They might just get their some actual representation from their senator.