The Race Card is Played: Bobby Rush Double Dog Dares Crackers to Not Seat the Black Man

The race card is played even before all the bets are in. Sing it with me y'all. "Ain't gonna let nobody turn me 'round, turn me 'round, turn me 'round...

Taking to the podium at the end of a bizarre, shambolic press conference in which Governor Rod Blagojevich sought to appoint Roland Burris to the US Senate, Congressman Bobby Rush dared white Democratic senators to block a black man from joining their ranks.

He urged people "not to hang or lynch the appointee as you try to castigate the appointer" and, after saying repeaedly that Burris would be the only African-American in the Senate, said that he believed no senator would want "to go on record to deny one African-American from being seated in the US Senate".

Rush is a former Black Panther who trounced Barack Obama in the 2000 Democratic primary when the then state senator challenged him for his House of Representatives seat.

The grinning Burris was told by Blagojevich - who policed the press conference - that "you're the senator". He appeared clueless about the money he'd donated to the governor, which will only add to the taint of the appointment.

As he left the room, Blagojevich echoed Rush, saying: "Feel free to castigate the appointer but don't lynch the appointee."

But Rush wasn't pleading. He was warning. He was daring Reid and the other senators to deny this black man the seat. I couldn't quite believe my ears when he used the word "lynch," but sure enough he did: he urged the members of the media "not to hang or lynch the appointee as you castigate the appointor." He went on to say that he and his congressional allies would push Reid to reverse his position and said of the prospect of a bunch of white senators denying Burris the seat: "I don't think they wanna go on record doing that."