Laura Washington

Betcha didn't know that the elected office of Senator of the United States of America was a color coded position? Apparently, Laura Washington of the Chicago Sun-Times thinks it is, anyway, because she is warning that Obama's "black Senate seat" will be lost because of this mess with Governor Rod Blagojevich getting arrested for trying to sell that "black seat" to the highest bidder.

In hers headlined "Black leaders see Senate seat being hijacked," Washington is ostensibly reporting on what black community leaders and politicos in Chicago are saying about who should be appointed to fill Obama's vacant seat. Still, Washington injected quite a lot of her own feelings into the tale of this gnashing of teeth and rending of cloth over the fate of that same seat to the effect that she endorses the idea that Obama's position in the Senate is officially a "black seat" and should stay that way.

Washington is worried most that if the seat is left to be filled by an actual vote of the people of Illinois, instead of an appointment by the governor, it will spell the end of the "black seat." At one point, Washington even claims that "white voters" are uninterested in why they might "deserve" a black senator and so cannot be counted on to vote black. That despite the fact that when Obama ran he was overwhelmingly elected by those same white voters -- not to mention that the other party also put up a black senate candidate to face him. Wouldn't it seem obvious that voting black is not much of a problem for white voters in Illinois?