Roland Burris and Alderman Burke: Carol Marin Reminds Us

Carol Marin of The Chicago Sun-Times reminds us:

Roland Burris’ Saturday visit with the FBI was a fitting cap to a week of political self-mutilation, a growing chorus of heavy hitters calling for his resignation, and an almost Nixon-like statement declaring the press as the enemy. But it was a middle of the week speech that really captured the moment.

There, before a standing-room-only crowd at the City Club, Ald. Ed Burke reminded us that machine politicians — and that’s what Burris is — still see themselves in mythic terms.


The 14th Ward alderman’s defense of poor Roland began with a quote from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends,” intoned Burke.

Burke thinks in terms of friends and enemies. By any standard, he has a boatload of friends, given the eye-popping $6,497,465 donated to his multiple political funds for an aldermanic seat that seldom sees a meaningful challenge. And he has been brilliant about playing the enemy card to justify the taxpayer-subsidized, 24-hour-a-day police bodyguard detail that drives him around and holds his coat.

There's only one Alderman Burke.Just one.