Roland Burris has been good for Illinois, but he’s been sipping too much of Blago’s juices of late and took on DC today.

Even as Senate leaders continued to challenge his appointment to the seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama, Roland W. Burris headed to Washington on Monday, setting the stage for a public showdown on Capitol Hill. 

In a news conference at Midway
airport in Chicago before his scheduled 2:20 p.m. flight to Baltimore,
a defiant Mr. Burris told reporters that he was not concerned about the
fact that the Illinois secretary of state, Jesse White, has rejected the paperwork that would officially send Mr. Burris to the Senate.

“Why
don’t you all understand that what has been done here is legal?” he
said. “I am the junior senator from Illinois, and I wish my colleagues
in the press would recognize that.”

He later added, “This is all politics and theater, but I am the junior senator according to every law book in the nation.”

What about the one that says Jesse White has to endorse your name?