Was Harry Reid the inspiration for Bluto Blutarsky?

Remember at the end of Animal House, when John Belushi drives off into the sunset with the snobby sorority girl and we learn that years from now they will be Senator and Mrs. John Blutarsky?

I'm wondering if Reid went to Dartmouth with the Animal House writers, or if the Senate Majority Leader learned political strategies from frat-boy movies. Either way, he got the message that the appointment of Roland Burris required a "a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part", and he was just the man to do it.

"The Secretary of the Senate has determined that the new credentials presented today on behalf of Mr. Burris now satisfy Senate Rules and validate his appointment to the vacant Illinois Senate seat. In addition, as we requested, Mr. Burris has provided sworn testimony before the Illinois House Committee on Impeachment regarding the circumstances of his appointment.

"We have spoken to Mr. Burris to let him know that he is now the Senator-designate from Illinois and as such, will be accorded all the rights and privileges of a Senator-elect.

"Accordingly, barring objections from Senate Republicans, we expect Senator-designee Burris to be sworn in and formally seated later this week. We are working with him and the office of the Vice President to determine the date and time of the swearing-in.

"As we had outlined to Mr. Burris, a path needed to be followed that respects the rules of the Senate. We committed to Mr. Burris that once those requirements were satisfied, we would be able to proceed. We are pleased that everything is now in order, we congratulate Senator-designee Burris on his appointment and we look forward to working with him in the 111th Congress."

Of course, this was the inevitable outcome from the moment Reid made his stand that the Senate would never, ever seat anyone Blagojevich appointed. The law was never on Reid's side and politically, dragging this out after the inauguration would cause more damage as a distraction than Burris could as a junior senator.

If Reid had not spent the last two years getting rolled by everyone who wanted to block liberal or progressive legislation, then I might admire Reid's turnabout as a way to separate the clusterfuck in Illinois from what's happening in Washington.

But instead of that outcome, Reid is once again left looking like a bumbling, spineless fool. Burris's appointment only means the most infamously corrupt politician in America today joins Joe Lieberman, Mitch McConnell and George W. Bush on the long list of people who have turned the Senate Majority Leader into their personal biatch - maybe while the ghost of his past asks, "What the fuck happened to the Delta Harry Reid I used to know? Where's the spirit? Where's the guts?"