From: INVALID_SEE_SIG@example.com.invalid
In the previous article, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
> Or if voters demanded good government? The place would have been
> nearly empty.
This post is going to make some of you triple-check the From: line.
Charlie Rangel was indeed a "walking ethics violation," but he was
also a walking example of "good government."
He worked *incredibly* hard. He blathered far-left horseshit almost
nonstop -- that's what kept him in office -- but, in conference and in
committee, he worked closely and cordially with Republicans to find
and do the right thing consistently. In particular, his service as
ranking member and then chairman of the Armed Services Committee was
clear-headed and rational. That's not to say I agreed with his
policies generally or specifically, just that he wasn't as crazy as
his rhetoric would indicate and that he was very much a man who could
listen to reason.
He was corrupt af, as the young people say, in the "soft" way that
probably 2/3 of Washington is "corrupt." Basically, he knew how to
stay just clean enough to keep from being expelled or sent to prison.
He laughed off his censure, thinking of it more as a "reset button"
than as an actual setback. (And he wasn't wrong.)
I wouldn't have voted for him for dogcatcher, but I would probably
have enjoyed the hell out of having a beer with him had the
opportunity presented itself. And if I were entreating him to consider
some policy proposal, I'd be more confident of a fair hearing on the
pure merits than with 90% of his colleagues.
RIP
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone objects to any statement I make, I am
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / baldwin@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it.-T. Lehrer
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* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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