red states rule
08-14-2010, 06:48 AM
The liberal media is heading the defense team for Charlie Rangel, and is once again falling back on one of the lefts most used (and over used) excuses
"Everyone does it"
In Congress, it happens all the time: during a phone call, after a handshake or before a gala dinner in a tacky hotel ballroom. Your elected leaders routinely beg for money from the same corporate bigwigs lobbying them for official actions. Sometimes it's a campaign check. Sometimes it's for a charity back home, often one named in the Congressman's honor.
Of course, the asking is done delicately, and often with plausible deniability, so no one raises a ruckus. But for precisely this reason, the new ethics charges pending against New York House Democrat Charles Rangel have the potential to shake up the U.S. Capitol's shady routines. Without any evidence of an explicit quid pro quo, Rangel has been accused of improper fundraising for an academic center in his honor. In effect, the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct has accused Rangel of behaving like his peers. "This is hardly unique," says Melanie Sloan, of the watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "A lot of members are going to be good and confused because it is not clear how what the Congressman has done is so different from what other members have done and are still doing."
It is undeniable that Rangel raised funds for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service in a clumsy way, asking for huge sums from companies that sought his favor, improperly using a Congressional letterhead and closely scheduling different meetings with the same people about fundraising and policy. But the charges against him hinge, in part, upon a squishy standard that has the potential to entrap many other elected leaders. A 1958 federal rule says government workers should not accept "favors or benefits under circumstances which might be construed by reasonable persons as influencing the performance of his governmental duties."
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2010358,00.html#ixzz0wa1mKamk
"Everyone does it"
In Congress, it happens all the time: during a phone call, after a handshake or before a gala dinner in a tacky hotel ballroom. Your elected leaders routinely beg for money from the same corporate bigwigs lobbying them for official actions. Sometimes it's a campaign check. Sometimes it's for a charity back home, often one named in the Congressman's honor.
Of course, the asking is done delicately, and often with plausible deniability, so no one raises a ruckus. But for precisely this reason, the new ethics charges pending against New York House Democrat Charles Rangel have the potential to shake up the U.S. Capitol's shady routines. Without any evidence of an explicit quid pro quo, Rangel has been accused of improper fundraising for an academic center in his honor. In effect, the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct has accused Rangel of behaving like his peers. "This is hardly unique," says Melanie Sloan, of the watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "A lot of members are going to be good and confused because it is not clear how what the Congressman has done is so different from what other members have done and are still doing."
It is undeniable that Rangel raised funds for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service in a clumsy way, asking for huge sums from companies that sought his favor, improperly using a Congressional letterhead and closely scheduling different meetings with the same people about fundraising and policy. But the charges against him hinge, in part, upon a squishy standard that has the potential to entrap many other elected leaders. A 1958 federal rule says government workers should not accept "favors or benefits under circumstances which might be construed by reasonable persons as influencing the performance of his governmental duties."
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2010358,00.html#ixzz0wa1mKamk