Burr Should Resign, Now.

Throughout the endless years of the Trump Presidency, I've had a grudging respect for Senator Richard Burr (R-NC).  While Republican Congressmen such as Devin Nunes and Mark Meadows were, shall we say, obfuscating candidate Trump's involvement with Russia, Chairman Burr worked hand-in-hand with the Ranking Member, Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), to lead the Senate Intelligence Committee through what looked like an honest, bipartisan investigation of the same subject.

Here, I thought, is an okay guy.  A Republican, admittedly, but a North Carolinian.  As a native and long-time Virginian, I've always tended to give residents of the Tar Heel state the benefit of the doubt.  (Unless, of course, they played basketball for Duke.)

To be sure, my estimation of Senator Burr was clouded by his voting record.  Mitch McConnell had a reliable Yea or Nay in the senior Senator from North Carolina.  But still, he seemed willing to investigate the President's Russia ties - and if you start investigating anything to do with Donald Trump, ain't no way it's going to come up smelling like roses.

So I was staggered to learn, from this morning's NPR newscast, that Mr. Burr had given a very realistic appraisal of the risks of a coronavirus pandemic to a handful of well-heeled contributors - mainly corporate types - who shared lunch with him on February 27.  A date when the Senator was saying absolutely nothing similar to the millions of ordinary North Carolinians who weren't members of the "North Carolina State Society" - but who were his constituents.

My immediate thought was, "He should resign."

Then I looked to see who happened to be the Governor of North Carolina - the person who would appoint someone to replace Mr. Burr, if he resigned.   Turns out it's Roy Cooper, a Democrat.  I quickly amended my thought to, "He must resign."

Now, to be sure, under North Carolina law, Governor Cooper is obligated to appoint someone who is of the same party as the vacating Senator.  So he couldn't appoint a Democrat.

But surely, there is, somewhere in the vastness of North Carolina - a state noted for independent-minded men and women - a Republican who holds as low an opinion of Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell as do other right-thinking Americans.

A Republican who would be willing to fill out the span between now November 3 denying Mitch McConnell - and the Stable Genius in the White House - a reliable vote for things like:  giveaways to corporations under the guise of doing something about the pandemic; wall-building as a way of keeping out viruses that are already here; and, most of all, nominees to the Federal judiciary.

All of which led me to this inevitable conclusion:  The Democratic presidential primary is over.  It's gonna be Joe Biden, and whomever he chooses for Vice-President - unless the Democratic Party insists he include someone else in the decision-making process.

But the Senate is going to spend the next seven-and-a-half months dealing with one of the biggest natural disasters in American history - and we need to be sure it does so in the interests of the citizens, not just the big donor class.

So, to me, the answer was obvious.  We should take our frustrated political energies and start demanding that Senator Burr resign.

Except, I knew that wouldn't happen.  Leaking information to your rich buddies, while concealing it from the rest of your constituents, is contemptible, dishonorable, and just plain wrong.  But in the Age of Trump, it also seems pretty routine - and it's not technically illegal

So I wasn't sure about writing this piece, until this evening, when I went on that Search Engine We All Hate to check my facts about Mr. Burr of North Carolina, and read that he and his wife had also dumped between a half-million and one-and-a-half-million dollars worth of stock two weeks before he told his rich buddies the frightening truth about the coronavirus.

Which certainly stinks.  And might just be illegal.

This new revelation made up my mind for me.  Burr must go.  We must all demand it.  We'll leave it to Governor Cooper to play Diogenes, looking for an honest Republican in North Carolina to fill Burr's seat until a special election can be held.

No harm if he takes a while making his choice.  No harm at all.

But Burr must resign.  Now.

So write a letter, and lick a stamp.  On second though, use a sponge.

You don't know where that stamp has been.