Obama backs down on Burris appointment

Barack Obama has said that he will accept African-American politician Roland Burris (pictured) as his replacement in the Senate despite lingering opposition to the prospective new Senator who was selected by the under-fire Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich.

In the wake of Blagojevich's arrest on corruption charges, many Senate Democrats opposed the Burris appointment but they have softened their stance following the news that Obama is happy for the 71-year-old to take his seat. Should Burris be confirmed, he will replace Obama as the only black person in the Senate.

"This is a Senate matter," Obama said in a Wednesday press conference at his transition headquarters in Washington. "But I know Roland Burris, obviously; he's from my home state. I think he's a fine public servant. If he gets seated then I'm going to work with Roland Burris, just like I work with all the other senators."

The new-found support represents a sharp change of tune since last week when Obama said he fully agreed with the decision of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his assistant Dick Durbin who had declared explicitly that they would not seat a man tainted by the Blagojevich "pay to play" scandal. Both have since met with Burris and appear happy for him to become a Senator.

On his independent poll tracking site, fivethirtyeight.com, Nate Silver says that most Americans support the seating of Burris and he also sticks up for Reid and Durbin. "At the time the Blagojevich scandal broke, did Reid and the Democrats really have any choice but to distance themselves as much as possible, and assert flatly that they wouldn't seat anyone that he nominated? Did they really have any reason to expect that a quasi-credible candidate like Roland Burris would actually accept Blagojevich's nomination?"

For his own part, Burris has boasted that he has the backing of former President Jimmy Carter. According to Burris, Carter rang him to say "When you are in the Senate, Roland, you will make a great Senator." Acknowledging that he will have to make a sworn declaration promising that he did not pay Blagojevich anything for the seat, Burris quipped, "There was certainly no pay-to-play involved, because I don't have no money."

Though Democratic opposition to Burris is waning, conservative pundits remain incredulous. Some insist Burris has already donated more than $15,000 to Blagojevich's campaigns in return for which his consultancy firm received a $300,000 contract from the Illinois state department of transport. "He's made his down-payment already!" writes Dick Morris on his blog. "Burris doesn’t have to do a quid pro quo with Blagojovich. He's got a charge account going!”

Meanwhile in Illinois, an unnamed resident has filed a law case trying to sue the Senate for delaying Burris's confirmation claiming that doing so is unconstitutional.

LAST UPDATED 4:41 PM, JANUARY 8, 2009