It turns out that U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel of New York was just wasting time in trying to evade the punishment of censure that his colleagues in the House of Representatives had in mind for his ethical violations.
But in an overwhelming vote Thursday, Rangel became just the 23rd House member to receive censure, which required Rangel to stand before the House like a misbehaving schoolboy and be chastised by the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
All that happened after the House voted 333-79 to censure the veteran lawmaker from Harlem who fought in recent days to have the censure reduced to a simple reprimand, a lighter punishment.
Last month, Rangel was convicted by the House Ethics Committee last month of 11 violations including tax evasion, filing misleading financial statements and improperly seeking money from corporations.
While Rangel's 40 years of service in the House on behalf of New Yorkers is a credit to his record, the scandal of the past two years will add a thick layer of tarnish to his accomplishments.
Even in his short statement on the House floor after the vote, Rangel came up a clunker when talking of the "political" nature of the vote against him. But if the vote was so political, why did a large majority of his fellow Democrats also vote in favor of censure instead of the lighter punishment?
Perhaps they heard from angry constituents who have grown weary of regular people having to follow one set of rules and lawmakers, who should be held to greater scrutiny, following a whole separate set of regulations.
Rangel avoided paying all his taxes on his vacation home in the Dominican Republic for 17 years. I fear where I would end up if I was lucky enough to have a summer home in the Dominican and decided not to give Uncle Sam his full cut.
Rangel has also repeated that while he made mistakes, none of them benefited him financially.
Charlie! Keeping money from the government to keep in your pockets benefits you financially. Any school kid can see that.
It's good that the Rangel saga is now over. The old lawmaker has been sufficiently punished for his misdeeds. He gets to go back to his office and serve the people of Harlem. And the nation can see that a silver tongue and friends in high places can't always get you off the hook when you do wrong.
16-Nov-10 - Forty-five years after he was killed by an Alabama State Trooper, Jimmie Lee Jackson, whose death lead to the first civil rights march on Selma, he is finally getting a small measure of justice.
12-Nov-10 - In a case better suited for Judge Mathis, Paula Cook is proceeding with her civil suit against Fantasia Barrino for an antiquated legal cause of action called "Alienation of Affection" in a North Carolina court.
