Posted on 09/15/2009 10:20:07 AM PDT by jazusamo
Once upon a time, before I began an interview with Rep. Charles Rangel, I was warned by an aide not to bring up the 1970 race in which the upstart Rangel defeated the virtually legendary Adam Clayton Powell to gain his House seat. In the intervening years, Powell had gone from has-been to icon, with both a state office building and a boulevard named for him in Harlem, and it did Rangel no good in his district to be remembered as the man who brought down Powell -- a little bit of history that desperately needed airbrushing. This, we are now learning, is Rangel's true vocation.
Rangel is now the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and a man of immense importance in Washington. Nonetheless, he has been busy of late revising and amending the record, backing and filling, using buckets of Wite-Out as he discovers or remembers properties he has owned in New York, New Jersey, Florida, the Dominican Republic and God only knows where else -- and has forgotten or neglected to fully report on the required forms, not to mention the income from them. Oops!
~snip~
This is the disease that ended Powell's career. He had good reason for his bitterness -- a black congressman whose staff couldn't even eat in the House cafeteria -- but he marshaled all the slights, all the insults, to excuse an abominable attendance record and contempt for the law. In the end, the very Harlem that today honors Powell turned against him and elected a Korean War vet named Charles Bernard Rangel. Now, all these years later, the omissions, deletions, amendments, corrections and curious accumulation of wealth make one revise the history that Rangel wants obliterated: He didn't beat Powell. He joined him.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Fellow Libs warming up the bolt gun for Fat Charlie. Who will replace him?
Reading this, I can only conclude that the delicate process of surgically removing Charlie Rangel from his chairmanship has started, lest the tumor kill the larger Party.
Someone w/ an even larger entitlement attitude. The System is unable to produce anything else.
Yep, when a WaPo columnist writes like this about a Dem that Dems days are numbered.
Well said...but I think all the delicacies are for naught. Urkel on the Potomac is doing his slash and burn routine to the larger detriment of the party. The dems have far bigger fires and tumors, to deal with. Charlie is just one on a long list of ‘Bimbo Eruptions’.
And when you can make the ‘neither speaks well for him argument’ (such as with Trent Lott), it’s just a matter of time.
Rangel is a multiple federal felon.
Except that he hasn’t been convicted yet. You see, some time back, the standard of conduct for Dem Congresscritters went from avoiding even the appearance of impropriety to still having enough reasonable doubt to hang a jury.
Exactly!
Correct, and even him being a CBC Dem the only possible way he’ll escape prosecution is another blatant miscarriage of justice by Holder.
“Rangel is a multiple federal felon.
Just like the person he replaced!
“He didn’t beat Powell. He joined him”
Given how Powell subsequently was glorified [In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Adam Clayton Powell Jr. on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Clayton_Powell,_Jr.], I’m sure Charlie Rangel is wondering why he’s not being showered with honorifics given that he has more than upheld the abysmal standard set by the person he succeeded.
Of course, Powell lived in a different era: the House Democratic Caucus stripped Powell of his committee chairmanship AND the heavily Democratic House voted to exclude him from being seated. Can you imagine that happening to Rangel?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.