Our history with Burris is already etched in stone

There is a reason you don't see footnotes on a tombstone.

Or grave markers with an asterisk next to the person's name.

By the time the dearly departed is in resting in peace, it's too late for any fine print.

Unless of course, your name is Roland Burris and you have built a monument for yourself while you are still alive.

Maybe you've seen pictures. The elaborate shrine lists his many political accomplishments under the word "TRAIL BLAZER" and the official seal of the great State of Illinois. The only thing missing of course is the guest of honor.

As Sen. Burris tries to defend himself from the onslaught that will undoubtedly topple his month-old empire, keep in mind what he has said about the large, stone mausoleum at Oak Tree Cemetery that awaits his eventual arrival.

Mr. Burris claims no responsibility for the granite tonnage that bears his resume.

"That wasn't me," said Burris when asked how his record of public service ended up carved in stone.

"The cemetery in Oak Woods insisted when I went out to plan my estate that my resume be put on it. That wasn't me. That was the manager of the funeral home," he said. "They insisted that my resume be put up and they came up with that design and did all that."

Mr. Burris maintains that the un-engraved areas of his tombstone were not reserved for some position-to-be-named-in-the-future, such as the U.S. Senate. "I had nothing to do with who designed that or who left a space at the top, that's how they put the words in," Burris said.

Maybe his explanation, "I didn't do it," was a precursor to Mr. Burris' reasoning for anything and everything that has gone wrong since he finagled his way into the world's most exclusive political club.

Last week, Sen. Burris said in his speech to the City Club of Chicago, "I have a history with you, a record that I have built over a lifetime. Thirty years in public life and never a hint of scandal."

Well, that is not exactly true.

Indeed, there have been lots of hints. One even involved cemeteries. For years as the Illinois comptroller, Mr. Burris regulated cemeteries and trust funds for peoples' future funeral needs.

He also took donations from the cemetery and funeral industries. It wasn't illegal, but neither is stupidity. At the least it was scandalously poor judgment and as questionable as George Ryan taking money from car dealers and from the trucking industry that he regulated as secretary of state.

When Burris was running against DuPage County State's Attorney Jim Ryan for state attorney general in 1990, Ryan demanded that Burris return $12,000 in cemetery and mortuary contributions. Mr. Ryan, who went on to win, called it "a conflict that compromised the independence of his office and lessened his ability to perform competently."

Burris gave the standard playground reply to Ryan: You do it, too, he told Ryan - by taking donations from lawyers - so why can't I?

"Thirty years I have been in service to this state, and you know me. You know the real Roland!" said Roland in last week's speech. "I have a history with you, a record that I have built over a lifetime."

Part of the Roland record during his time as Illinois' Attorney General included allegations that he put his own political aspirations ahead of doing the right thing in a controversial murder case.

When Burris refused to admit an error in the homicide conviction of Rolando Cruz and fought Cruz's appeals, one of Burris' top state lawyers quit. "To me it was quite clearly a political decision," Mary Brigid Kenney said."I think he was chicken. They decided not to help Rolando Cruz because he didn't want to look soft on crime."

The Illinois Supreme Court later exonerated Cruz of murdering 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico of Naperville.

While AG, Mr. Burris also used campaign funds to prop up his state pension account, so there would be more gold for him in the pot at the end of the rainbow.

Another part of Burris' public service was greatly appreciated by the law firm of Jones, Ware and Grenard. The Chicago firm had never received an ounce of state legal work until Mr. Burris became state attorney general. During his tenure, the firm earned almost $750,000 from state contracts.

When Burris left state government in 1998, he became the managing partner of that law firm.

Last week, when Sen. Burris asked Illinoisans to "stop the rush to judgment," he was hoping that we had forgotten about some of his questionable behavior of the past 30 years. Certainly many of us had forgotten about Burris the past few years, taking him at his word when he promised never again to seek public office.

Now he wants us to look at him as a clean slate, sort of like the shiny, uncut granite on his tombstone.

Perhaps Mr. Burris ought to remember the trip he made to a certain cemetery on the day he was elected Illinois comptroller in 1979, the first black state officer ever.

The morning of his swearing in, Burris recalled standing alone at Abraham Lincoln's tomb in Springfield. "It was quiet, and I was alone with Mr. Lincoln," said Burris. "And I wondered, 'Can he see me? Does he know who I am? Does he know what's taking place today in his Illinois?'"

For Mr. Burris, perhaps those questions are even more pertinent today.

• Chuck Goudie, whose column appears each Monday, is the chief investigative reporter at ABC 7 News in Chicago. The views in this column are his own and not those of WLS-TV. He can be reached by email at chuckgoudie@gmail.com