Senator Burris.

Marc Ambinder annotates:

A joint statement from Senate Majority Leader Reid and Majority Whip Dick Durbin

"The Secretary of the Senate has determined that the new credentials presented today on behalf of Mr. Burris now satisfy Senate Rules and validate his appointment to the vacant Illinois Senate seat. In addition, as we requested, Mr. Burris has provided sworn testimony before the Illinois House Committee on Impeachment regarding the circumstances of his appointment.

Wow, did we mess this up. The guy just did an end-run around all of us. We expected him to be Blago-like, but he wasn't. He was senatorial. Agreeable. Maybe he can win...uh, downstate. And .. we messed up the racial politics of this big-time. So... in order to save some face, we'll just create a procedural defense: we always intended to seat the guy, but his paperwork wasn't in order.

"We have spoken to Mr. Burris to let him know that he is now the Senator-designate from Illinois and as such, will be accorded all the rights and privileges of a Senator-elect.

We apologized.

"Accordingly, barring objections from Senate Republicans, we expect Senator-designee Burris to be sworn in and formally seated later this week. We are working with him and the office of the Vice President to determine the date and time of the swearing-in.

As we worried all along, the Republicans are saying that Democrats caved and appointed Blago's hand-picked senator.

"As we had outlined to Mr. Burris, a path needed to be followed that respects the rules of the Senate. We committed to Mr. Burris that once those requirements were satisfied, we would be able to proceed. We are pleased that everything is now in order, we congratulate Senator-designee Burris on his appointment and we look forward to working with him in the 111^th Congress."]

This has been an enormous distraction. Obama's annoyed with us. Other senators are annoyed with us. The black caucus is annoyed with us. We need to move on, and quickly. Why didn't we go with a special election, again?