Charlie Rangel Goes All Blago - Veiled Threat, to Colleagues?

Charlie Rangel was always kind of a cartoon character to me. He reminded me of a wildly antic video game icon running hither and yon to various news media outlets and letting out with NOOYAWKEE English about . . . whatever.

Recently, the same media mopes, who have tried to turn Ted Kennedy into Benjamin Disraeli and present Bob Byrd as anything but a Grand Cyclops Pork Hustler right out of a Coen Brothers movie, now cast Charlie Rangel as Audie Murphy in the role of Dr. Martin Luther King playing Ghandi.

Rather, Charlie Rangel chewed the scenery as former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich on the floor of Congress, yesterday. Get this from the Denver Doric Column Building hack Dana Milbank -

"You're not going to tell me to resign to make you feel comfortable," Rangel informed his Democratic colleagues. "And for those who disagree, I'm sorry, but that's one thing you can't take away from me."

Midway through the diatribe, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi left her seat and walked to the back of the chamber. When Rangel finally finished, a few dozen Democrats -- mostly members of the black caucus, New Yorkers and liberals -- stood to applaud. Most Democrats -- including Rep. David Obey (Minn.), the man who was leading the teachers-and-cops bill on the floor -- sat in silence. Democratic members, approached by reporters for comment as they left the chamber, looked stricken. . . "You're not going to tell me to resign to make you feel comfortable," Rangel informed his Democratic colleagues. "And for those who disagree, I'm sorry, but that's one thing you can't take away from me. . . Rangel rambled through the allegations against him. Fundraising with official letterhead: "Grabbing the wrong stationery." The center named after him at the City University of New York: "A broken-down building." The office in the rent-controlled apartment: "The landlord has said he didn't treat me differently." The unpaid taxes on his Caribbean vacation place: "You'd have to be a tax expert" to get that right, said the deposed chairman of the tax-writing committee.

The diatribe was directed mostly at his own side of the aisle, where "no one is coming forward saying Rangel is not corrupt." He said he was told that his colleagues "all love you . . . but they love themselves better." He mocked those who turned against him for political expediency: "Do what you have to do."

Repeatedly, he dared his colleagues to vote on his fate. "Are you going to expel me from this body?" he demanded. "Are you going to say that while there's no evidence that I took a nickel, asked for a nickel, that there's no sworn testimony, no conflict, that I have to leave here?"


The angry lawmaker left his colleagues with two words: "Go home."

Dana Milbank, a huge Obama-bot and former MSNBC Tool-shed member, is like a tiny moral plastic wind up mouse scurrying around the kitchen floor - he never knows where to plant his feet and take a stand.

Charlie Rangel on the hand is a Harlem Hustler who defeated Adam Clayton Powell another Golden Gooser back when I was starting high school. Charlie Rangel knows where every unsucked, let alone unplucked bone is tossed in the House of Representatives and he has been insulted by the very people who demanded that he 'get it done for the people!'

Seems to me that Charlie is holding many decks of cards more than the idiot savant for Governor of Illinois and Charlie is not staring at a list Federal charge. This is politics baby!

Charlie will rat out rats, like Charlie says, "all love you . . . but they love themselves better." More better.