Rangel's Censure Is a Joke

If his House censure is still stinging, Charlie Rangel would do well to pick up today's Washington Post. Columnists Dana Milbank and David Broder don't exactly make the case he's innocent (not even Rangel does that), but they lend sympathetic voices:

• Milbank: He belittles the House ethics panel, calling it rank hypocrisy that Rangel got singled out for common behavior. "If it's any consolation, Rangel should know that however harmed he was by the censure, the entity that was really disgraced was Congress itself. This is because Rangel's two-year battle with the House ethics committee exposed the woeful state of lawmakers' abilities to police their own." Full column here.

• Broder: He likens Rangel's case to that of Dan Rostenkowski's in the late '80s. "He and Rosty had the same view of the hometown patronage games that brought them down. They wanted the perks that went with their positions of power. But they used them more often to help others along than for themselves, and they weren't greedy. Often, they were just sloppy about the demands of the new era of politics." Full column here.

(More Charles Rangel stories.)