Charlie the coward
Last Updated: 3:38 PM, March 1, 2010
Posted: February 28, 2010
Yet what other term is appropriate when a 79-year-old political veteran, the dean of the New York delegation and chairman of one of the most powerful panels on Capitol Hill, ducks responsibility for a pretty obvious personal ethical lapse by throwing his staff under the bus?
That’s Rangel’s story in the face of the House Ethics Committee’s report Friday declaring that he violated House rules by taking corporate-sponsored trips to the Caribbean in 2007 and 2008.
The committee didn’t admonish four other Democratic House members on the trips because neither they nor their offices were aware of how the trip was funded (despite the omnipresent corporate signage in plain view for the attendees).
Rangel’s office knew — and, the committee concluded, “Rangel was responsible for the knowledge and actions of his staff and the performance of their official duties.”
That is, the buck stops with the boss.
Rangel disagreed, saying, “Members of Congress should not be held responsible for what could be the wrongdoing or mistakes or errors of staff unless there’s reason to believe that member knew or should have known, and there is nothing in the record to indicate the latter.”
He elaborated Friday, claiming that the ethics committee actually exonerated him, because it didn’t prove that he knew how the trips were funded.
This report is only one part of a series of official inquiries of Rangel, sparked primarily by reporting in The Post.
There’s also Rangel’s failure to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets and rental income from a New York building, on his financial-disclosure forms — plus neglecting to pay taxes on rent from a Dominican villa.
Who’ll get blamed for those omissions and errors, Charlie? Accountants? Lawyers? Real-estate agents?
Good help is so hard to find . . .
Meanwhile, Speaker Nancy Pelosi — who promised the “most ethical Congress in history” four years ago — backed up her Ways and Means chairman, refusing to ask him to step down pending the remaining ethics probes.
These are people with the fate of a profoundly troubled nation in their hands.
It is to weep.
Read more: nypost.com |
