Dianne Feinstein is supporting Roland Burris's efforts to be seated. Feinstein chairs the Senate Rules Committee, which is where the Burris issue will eventually be heard, so her decision to roll rogue on this matters. It's also suggestive evidence that she's going to try and carve out a more independent role for herself in the next couple of years. The Senate has lost a number of its crusty, process-oriented elders in recent years, and she seems ready to step into the gap. Meanwhile, you have to ask yourself what Burris wants out of all this. To be senator, obviously. But it won't be a pleasant ride. He'll be a tainted appointment facing the resentment of his Senate colleagues and the annoyance of the President of the United States and his staff. It's not an optimal set of conditions for getting things done. Nor for being reelected. His name will live on as an answered in Trivial Pursuit: Politics Edition, but that's about the best he can hope for here, and he'll have to suffer rather a lot for the honor.
