Opinion: The Reid-Burris-Obama news release you might have missed

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It’s standard operating procedure in today’s 24-hour media world to publish a news release when you want to get the word out to many people at once, especially in the media, which politicians then expect to echo the news even farther and wider.

In Washington, it is standard operating procedure that if you want to appear to publish news but actually hope that most people miss it, you put out that short news release late on Friday, the nation’s legislative capital not being known as a weekend workaholic kind of place. And by the time Monday or maybe even Tuesday rolls around, especially if there’s been a big football game, the subject could be stale, overlooked and hopefully forgotten.

So obviously someone in the office of Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made a mistake late last Friday when they sent out a somewhat unusual news release at 6:22 p.m. Eastern time, announcing that, in effect, Reid was taking over the office operations of newly ensconced Illinois Sen. Roland Burris.

So, always eager to help promote political communications, The Ticket saved that news release for this morning, when more readers could be alert, assuming they weren’t in Tampa Sunday.

The Reid news release said that Darrel Thompson, identified by Reid as ‘one of my most respected senior staff members,’ had been placed by Reid in complete charge of organizing most everything in the new office of the Blagojevich appointee, from picking a chief of staff to organizing constituent services to picking other office employees.

Burris, a former Illinois attorney general and state comptroller, was quoted as sounding pleased about not being in charge of organizing his own Senate operations and having his new office overseen by someone reporting to Reid, who never wanted Burris seated in the first place.

Burris, of course, is the fellow who was so slyly nominated by that rapscallion Rod Blagojevich, now the ex-governor of the Land of Lincoln because of federal allegations he was auctioning off state services, including possibly the nomination to fill now President Obama’s vacant Senate seat.

Back in December, according to published news reports in Chicago, Reid was caught on federal wiretaps attempting to steer Blagojevich away from some potential nominees. Then, when Blagojevich was arrested, Reid got his Democratic Senate pals to sign a letter urging Blagojevich to resign, hoping to head off an attempted nomination.

The governor, of course, ignored it. When he subsequently made the nomination of Burris, who’s African American, Reid vowed that Burris would not be seated. And the vacationing Obama backed Reid from Hawaii.

The last paragraph of the Friday news release notes: ‘Darrel has political roots in Illinois, having served as chief of staff of Barack Obama’s 2004 Senate campaign.’

So, according to the news release that we all might have missed over Super Bowl weekend, the top two Washington power figures who didn’t want Burris in town, let alone in the Senate, now have direct control over the newcomer’s office and political operations.

Just wanting to be helpful, you understand.

--Andrew Malcolm

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Roland Burris meets with Harry Reid.