Roland Burris is not a crook and in so far as we know neither is Mr. Obama. Let me revise that remark. It looks like Burris may be a crook from Crook County. That would be Chicago for you folks not from the area.

CHICAGO - Sen. Roland Burris promised to "personally do something" for Rod Blagojevich's campaign fund while pressing for the then-Illinois governor to appoint him to President Barack Obama's former Senate seat, according to a wiretap transcript released Tuesday.

"Tell Rod to keep me in mind for that seat, would ya?" Burris tells Robert Blagojevich, who headed his brother's campaign fund, in a Nov. 13 phone conversation secretly taped by the FBI.

The remark came after Robert Blagojevich urged Burris to "keep me in mind and you know if you guys can just write checks that'd be fine, if we can't find a way for you to tie in."

"Okay, okay, well we, we, I, I will personally do something, okay," Burris says.

Earlier in the conversation, Burris and Robert Blagojevich explored the possibility that Burris might raise campaign money on a larger scale.

"I know I could give him a check," Burris said. "Myself."

I can tell you what my mom says about politicians in general though. "They are all crooks." She learned that from her father, who of course was my grandfather.

Cross Posted at Power and Control