FREAK OF THE WEEK: U.S. Sen. Roland Burris

This week, the FredBlog shines the freaklight on U.S. Sen. Roland Burris, the Illinois Democrat who is now changing his story about his connections to disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Previously, I had defended then-Gov. Blagojevich’s ability to lawfully appoint Burris at a time when Blogo was under political fire for allegedly trying to sell the senate seat vacated by Barack Obama. By all accounts, Burris was an upstanding choice – and even those who hated Blagojevich did not have anything negative to say about Burris.

This past week, all that changed.

A large part of the reason why Burris was palatable to the naysayers was Burris’ assurances that he had nothing to do with Blogo’s alleged corruption and pay-for-play scandal. In fact, during Blogo’s impeachment trial, Burris specifically said he never had any contact with the governor or his associates regarding anything questionable.

But now Burris is changing his story. Last weekend, Burris released an affidavit in which he admits that Blogo’s brother Robert asked Burris to raise money for Blogo’s reelection campaign before Burris’ Senate appointment – three times!

Worse yet, Burris then told reporters, “There was no change of any of our testimony.”

So let me get this straight. Then, the line was: No contact with Blogo associates. Now, the line is: Contact with Blogo’s brother and other Blogo aides. Um, Roland, you better rethink that “no change of any of our testimony” bit.

The Chicago Tribune has called this Burris’ “evolving narrative.”

Burris is also trying to convince us that the content of the affidavit is irrelevant since he released it of his own accord, and not at the insistence of federal prosecutors. Nice try, but no one’s buying that, either. Illinois prosecutors have launched a perjury inquiry, the Senate Ethics Committee has opened an investigation, and more and more people are calling for his resignation.

Pierre Salinger, a California Democrat, is famous for passing away in office in 1964 after serving only 148 days as a U.S. senator. And Rebecca Latimer Felton served only one day as a senator from Georgia in 1922. So Burris could yet make history as having one of the shortest terms in the U.S. Senate.