Relativism and Seating Burris

I've been thinking about a few things with respect to Reid finally coming around to seating Burris. But one is this: what if Blago's appointee was not Burris? What if he was someone who met the Constitutional qualifications for the Senate, but was either a) someone eminently unqualified, like a public school teacher, or b) someone with a well-publicized record as a racist (of either the Malcolm X-Jeremiah Wright flavor or of the George Wallace-David Duke brand).

Now, we've already basically determined that the Il. Sec. of State's certification is essentially a formality. Jesse White doesn't have veto power over a governor's appointment. In the Burris case, since he came without the signature, Reid and others will claim it is crucial to his being seated, in order to save face. In all likelihood, it's probably not.

And Congress can judge the qualifications and elections of its members. Which, as per my examples, would necessarily be the same as Burris's.

Yet clearly, in either case, there would be a huge push not to seat either of these appointments, just as, in this case, there was a huge push to seat Burris -- on grounds that he was constitutionally legal, that it was creating an unwanted PR mess for Obama, and that it was keeping the only black guy out of the Senate.

So where's the line? Reid can meet with Burris and find out he's "a nice man" who "loves his family" (SHOCK) and in the end, basically agree to seat him. But just because the Senate Democrats wouldn't like a different Blago appointee, they can reject him? Hell, most Senators probably don't want Franken. But they sure as hell can't do anything about it.

My guess is, in either of my aforementioned hypotheticals, that the Senate would either seat and then expel him, or they would just have the Il. Sec. of State not certify the appointment, and then push the Illinois legislature to move along with impeachment proceedings hastily, in order to keep it unofficial until the Liet. Gov. took over. Yet neither of these ends really address my original point.