Charles Rangel Has A Ways And Means With Words
Today it's 84 degrees and sunny in St. Martin, unlike the future for one of its recent tourists, New York representative Charles Rangel. His time looks to be over as head of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, a congressional panel that not only regulates means, but also ways. He is out as chairman of that panel, but only temporarily.
On Tuesday night Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Rangel both told The Hill that he was still the chairman at that exact moment in our nation's history. So maybe the paperwork hadn't gone through yet. But I absolutely love the back-and-forth between the reporter and Rangel after the meeting:
Reporter: Are you still chairman?
Rangel: You bet your sweet life.
Reporter: Will you still be chairman tomorrow or the next day?
Rangel: I'm 79 years old. You can't be sure about anything.
Reporter: What did Pelosi say to you?
Rangel: She told me not to say a damn thing.
Reporter: Are you still the chairman?
Rangel: Yes. And I don't lie to the press.
Whatever exact moment took Rangel out as chairman and replaced him with Pete Stark must have occurred between then and the timestamp on this article.
And why is the Harlem congressman in trouble, you say? As a man who sat on a committee that handled taxation, Rangel is being investigated for possible ethics violations related to accepting some comped vacations to the Caribbean, back taxes, and other financial matters. On Friday he said he the ethics committee report "exonerates" him of any wrongdoing, something that got Politifact's notorious Pants on Fire rating. Can you do a rimshot on a steel drum?
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