Last week, the House ethics committee decided that Representative Charles Rangel (D- NY) was guilty of 11 of the 13 ethics violations charges against him. The committee almost unanimously recommended censure, which is just one step, punishment-wise, shy of actual expulsion. The House will then vote on censure, and if that's passed, then the speaker (either Pelosi or Boehner, depending on when this will occur) will publicly rebuke Congressman Rangel. His accusations included accepting gifts over fifty dollars from a Manhattan developer, using his office to raise charity money from people with business motives, and a failure to report about half a million dollars worth of assets. He's also accepted trips to the Caribbean, and he's been unwilling to admit to his misdeeds.
Obviously, Rangel has been unethical, and a mere reprimand probably wouldn't be a just punishment, and his actions have to accounted for so as to, I don't know, preserve some scraps of congressional integrity. But Rangel is a twenty-term congressman, one of the strongest political voices to come from Harlem, a strong liberal and a good compromiser, and a co-founder of the Congressional Black Caucus. He's not unproductive, and has actually proved to be a vital part of the House for decades, and, although I don't want to rationalize, it's not like the rest of Congress is completely pure in ethics, either. I don't feel that Rangel being punished is a race issue; ignoring blatant ethics violations so as not to seem racist is, in its way, racist, since doing so fails to look at actions objectively. It's just that Rangel is not a bad person, and he's a good congressman, too, so this situation is just very hard to watch. If he had just been ethical, things would be fine. There'd be no hearings about censure and whatnot, no reports of unreported money, etc.
But it's really, really difficult to be ethical, and popular, and successful. Although unrelated to the Rangel issue, there is also a clear lack of ethics in Sarah Palin's TLC special series...and in her job on FOXNews, and with her daughter being on Dancing with the Stars despite her lack of talent or celebrity status, and with Palin's constant blurring of the line between "political figure" and "spotlight-seeking nutcase." Her constant media presence is, I've decided, hilarious, given her constant sneering at the "lamestream media" (ooh, good job Sarah. Way to make up even more words which signify your adorably limited vocabulary. Refudiate that). I don't think it's ethical at all to have a TV series which is, ostensibly, a six-part endorsement that she doesn't even have to pay for. Mark Burnett, the reality show guru who produced the series, pays her six figures. I was reading an op-ed piece in the NYT about Palin, and apparently her new book is set to rocket up the bestseller list, her TV show is a red-state hit, her daughter can't get voted off that dancing show (I saw Bristol on that once--she said that she's an "activist" for, I don't know, safe sex for teens. I think the terms she was looking for would be closer to "cautionary tale" or "case-in-point"), populist-ish folk adore her (like, 80% approval-among-conservatives adore), EVEN THOUGH all the candidates she endorsed in mid-terms lost (because they were insane) and the not-extremist Republicans can not stand her. Rupert Murdoch touts her as his prized pet, vouching for her obviously ghost-written policy op-eds. The point I got from the NYT column is that Palin and her fans don't hate liberals, or the rich, or the media -- they hate education, they rally against it, they despise it, view it as some elitist trick their opponents use against them. "Anti-elitist" currently means "pro-mediocrity," and, while that's a charming idea for a basic cable reality show, that's no way for a politician to behave. And for a politician to be actively supporting that -- now, that's a lack of ethics.
Oh well. If Palin does run in 2012, and the Mayan calendar doesn't run out and we don't all die, at least Tina Fey will be employed.
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