When you get caught with your hands in the cookie jar, it’s really best to accept responsibility, beg forgiveness and fade away. However, New York Democratic Representative Rep. Charlie Rangel can’t seem to be able to accept reality and move on.
Rangel is suing the speaker of the House and a few other colleagues to have his 2010 censure overturned.
Perhaps Rangel’s House office manager might want to remind Charlie how the vote came down on his censure: at the time the Democratic-run House voted 333-79 to censure Rangel for a long list of House ethics violations.
Surely the citizens of New York must be enjoying Charlie’s attempt to rewrite history. After all being found to be a dirt bag doesn’t preclude one from being resurrected in New York. We see that Anthony Weiner is now considering a run for New York mayor; surely Weiner isn’t pleased that Rangel is resurfacing his past indiscretions, something Weiner wants to avoid at all costs.
Nonetheless Rangel is all too happy to remind New Yorkers that their elder statesman has a decades-long history of dipping into the muck.
Mr. Rangel’s most recent offenses include being caught hiding Caribbean property from the IRS, using four rent-controlled apartments in violation of the rules and acting in a manner that would destroy the reputations of your average citizen, let alone a chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
When the House Ethics Committee reported out on Rangel’s actions in 2010 even President Obama called on Rangel to resign. But Charlie refused.
Rangel is just another example of why people think so little of politicians. A full third of New Yorkers say their own representatives are corrupt. All too often shamed politicians like Rangel and Weiner don’t get caught, shamed and simply disappear; they immediately plot their comeback instead.
Sadly allowing corrupt politicians back into the swamp further denigrates Congress which already borders on the precipice of total contempt; a place once held in high regard, it now barely ranks higher than cancer.
Charlie Rangel had a good run and even with his corruptions there’s much in his career he could be proud of if, and only if, he had the moral fortitude to pack his bags and let the soothing light of history highlight his successes and dim his failures. Unfortunately Rangel doesn’t have that sort of personality and in his warped mind he actually believes he can rewrite history.
Sorry Charlie.
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