The Rats Are Back at Play — Representative Charlie Rangel Partied with Democratic Party Leaders at an (as much as) $5,000 per Plate Dinner — Columnist Dana Milbank’s Insightful Take on the Corruption that Is Congress

© 2011 Peter Free

 

19 November 2011

 

 

Columnist Dana Milbank has an excellent eye for our national leaders’ love affair with money-making hypocrisy

 

Skewering hypocrites with juxtapositions of their behavior on different occasions is a valuable national service.

 

Dana Milbank does this frequently.  He acts as a national conscience in our Age of the Microsecond Memory.

 

Yesterday, Milbank pointed out how the recently censured Congressman Charlie Rangel (Democrat, New York) has gone from Congress’ Temporary Toilet to Honorable Man in just a few months — without essentially changing anything he’s done or stands for.

 

Corruption, implied Milbank, is our government’s virtually fulltime occupation.

 

In illustration, he noted that Charlie Rangel held an up to $5,000 per plate dinner in Washington D.C. — and the same Democratic Party leaders who had censured him in December 2010 attended.

 

Wrote Rangel afterward:

 

“At a special event in Washington, Democratic leaders including Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, James Clyburn, Sandy Levin, John Conyers, Emmanuel Cleaver, and Steve Israel stood by my side and pledged their unwavering support on my behalf. I am so humbled and grateful for their involvement.”

 

Observed Milbank:

 

The speedy rehabilitation of a member who received the House’s first censure in nearly three decades is a symptom of what has destroyed trust in government and the ability of that government to function.

 

As Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig, an ethics specialist, put it to me this week: “Who would ever trust such a system?”

 

“The great threat to our republic today comes not from the hidden bribery of the Gilded Age,” he writes, but from “the economy of influence now transparent to all, which has normalized a process that draws our democracy away from the will of the people. . . . We have created instead an engine of influence that seeks simply to make those most connected rich.”

 

© 2011 Dana Milbank, Pay to play, brought to you by Washington, Washington Post (18 November 2011) (paragraph split)

 

 

Bits more evidence from other rat-infested corners — Solyndra

 

Milbank is not given to making pronouncements without significant evidence.  Characteristically, he added a few more very recently-occurred tidbits to his chastisement.

 

In regard to the current Administration’s obvious penchant for delivering results to influence peddling, Milbank noted that Congress had discovered that George Kaiser — an investor who had donated to President Obama — “was in and around the White House at least 16 times in the time period that the Solyndra loan program was being reviewed.”

 

We all recall that the Obama-backed Solyndra lost a half billion dollars of taxpayer money, when it folded its tents and disappeared into the metaphorical night.

 

Coincidence?  Neither Milbank nor I think so.

 

 

Not to be outdone — parallel scum-dom from a Republican wonder boy

 

Not wanting to leave the Republican Party unscathed (probably because that group of Plutocratic Toadies is the unparalleled embodiment of Reverse Robin-Hood-ism) Milbank pointed out that Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich had acted Solyndra-similarly.

 

The Wonkish Pudge had taken no less than “$1.6 million in consulting fees from Freddie Mac.”

 

Freddie Mac, you recall, is partially to blame for the real estate meltdown that was one of the major levers that brought the world’s economy down.

 

And, noted Milbank, Newt received this (figurative) bag of dough, during a period when his fellow Party members were trying to get rid of Freddie Mac.  Worse, Gingrich had criticized the President for taking campaign contributions from exactly the same entity.

 

 

Who wins the Hypocrisy Prize?

 

It’s difficult to assess whether Rangel (and his Democratic Party honcho-cronies) or Newt G. has the better claim to the Golden Goblet of Himalayan-High Hypocrisy.

 

 

The moral? — A system that breeds money-swilling, wallet-emptying rats is not a good one

 

“Scandalous” is the word Milbank uses to describe all this.

 

“Sad” is mine.   “Scandal” assumes that we still have standards.  I don’t think we do.