Sorry Charlie

A year ago I would have bet the mortgage against it, but it looks as though a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives will complete the process after all and actually censure one of their own, long-time New York Congressman Charlie Rangel.  You can be sure that the evidence against him is overwhelming or the Dems would have simply issued a pass.  As it is, even censure is a tap on the wrist.  You or I would be in jail.

Rangel, of course, continues to insist on his essential innocence.  Mistakes were made, but...blah, blah, blah. You know the drill.  I have to admit, however, that while justice is indeed being carried out, there is still something nevertheless believable about his protestations.

To me, Rangel and this entire saga represent one more episode in the slow but steady disappearance of a particular species of politician.  A similar example can be found in the fate of the late Dan Rostenkowski, also a former Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.  These politicians are, and almost invariably so, older men, Democrats, who hail from big cities like New York, Chicago, Boston, etc., where machine politics was once the only order of the day.  (Still is to some degree.)  For them, politics was almost entirely about rewarding their friends, and themselves, and about punishing their enemies.  If you charged them with corruption for doing so, they would look at you like we look at Captain Renault in Casablanca when he shuts down Rick's cafe because he is "shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!"  Hence, when they protest, they're not being disingenuous.  They really mean it when they say, "Are you kidding me?"

Don't misunderstand.  Rangel is getting what he deserves, or, well, almost anyway.  And it's way past time to discredit any and all rationalizations for taking from some in order to give to others.  But what makes the theft of old pols like Rangel and Rostenkowski somehow less objectionable is that they can look you in the eye and tell you that they do it simply because they can.  At least they won't bore or insult you with some highfalutin justification they learned as a graduate student from a quasi-Marxist professor.