Oh, the irony.
After claiming that she would preside over the “most ethical Congress in history,” Nancy Pelosi is instead presiding over the same kind of shenanigans that cost Republicans their majority in 2006.
Yesterday, iconic Harlem Congressman and key Pelosi lieutenant Charles Rangel was forced to resign his chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee after he was reprimanded by the Ethics Committee for travel to the Caribbean.
Later in the day, one-term New York Congressman Eric Massa, a fellow Democrat, announced he would not be seeking re-election, though he claimed it was completely unrelated to charges that he made a sexual advances on a male aide.
It’s 2006 redux, albeit at this point, on a much smaller scale.
You will remember that in 2006, what made the scandal involving Rep. Mark Foley extra-explosive was information that indicated the House Republican leadership had been aware of the accusations but did nothing substantive to deal with them.
Turns out House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) knew of the sexual-harassment allegations against Massa.
True, they have been referred to that farce known as the House Ethics Committee — you know, the one that “admonished” Rangel for his abuse of power and blatant violation of the ethics rules put in place in response to the Republican travel scandals of 2006.
In case you didn’t know, “admonish” is another way of saying for “did nothing.”
At least Massa read the writing on the wall and is making himself scarce.
Rangel, on the other hand, held on as long as he could — telling reporters as recently as Tuesday night that he would not step down as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, despite the admonishment.
Pelosi chose as one of her top allies in the House a man who has been under an ethics cloud that is likely going to get much worse.
She was reckless in allowing him to stay in control of a powerful committee rather than dealing with the issue before it got on the national radar.
Now each time the Ethics Committee rules on Rangel’s various issues, it will be another bad story about Democratic corruption.
The fact that Republicans had a greater volume of corruption issues is irrelevant. If you run saying you are going to give voters a change to a clean government, then don’t make one of your key allies someone who is ethically challenged.
Rangel has been accused of some pretty bad stuff.
The Ethics Committee is looking at a range of issues, including his failure to pay taxes on a villa in the Dominican Republic and his violating rent-control laws in New York City.
Oh, and he also “forgot” to report $500,000, which he has sitting in a bank account.
At least the money wasn’t being stored in a freezer.
kirstenpowers@aol.com