The Most Ethical Congress in History?
Is that like having the best little whore-house in Texas?
That was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s comment on assuming the gavel back in 2006. Now, New York Representative Charles Rangel is on the verge of giving up the most powerful chairmanship in the House of Representatives under a cloud of multiple ethical challenges ranging from tax evasion to corporate funded junkets to vacation destinations. He hasn’t officially stepped down, but he will-tonight even. It’s that or face a sure rebuke by his colleagues in the form of a resolution that every Republican and scores of Democrats will surely vote for.
This is just the icing on a cake filled with four years of cold hard cash stashing, back-room dealing, bribe taking and power grabbing by Democrats from coast to coast. The thing is, it is not that the Democrats have a monopoly on corruption in power. Far from it in fact. The most disappointing (and telling frankly) thing is that Democrats don’t seem to ever call for their colleagues to step aside, feel shame, commit hari-kari…nothing!
Only now, faced with having to wear the sins of Charlie “the hustle” Rangel around their neck going into the mid-term elections have the Democrats begun to call for him to do the right thing. The best part…it wasn’t Speaker Pelosi who called for this. It was the poor, vulnerable Democrats who finally found the courage to speak up and tell him to do the honorable thing. Even at the time of this post, she has resisted leading on the issue of rooting out corruption.
From Politico:
And when Pelosi was asked whether Rangel was resigning, she said “no comment.”
Let me be clear, Republicans have been scandal plagued many times over. In fact, those scandals played heavily in the 2006 and 2008 elections. The difference that I noticed is that by-and-large once a Republican was caught messing up, leadership quickly read the writing on the wall and that person was removed.
Corruption should not be a partisan issue. I cannot imagine why Congress would tolerate it in their ranks. I fully believe that if the Democrats were not already facing the cliff come November there would be no action on removing Rangel from his Chairmanship. He would be coddled and wrapped in the protective circle all too common over the last four years.
Shame on all of them.
Oh, and my bet is its too late to avoid it being an issue in Congressional races across the country.
Photo credit: AP
