Blogs For Victory

What will hurt Obama more, Blago or Rangel? Time will tell:

It certainly didn’t take long for scandal to rear its ugly head in the new era of Democratic control. Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich saw to that, and in spectacular fashion.

But while most attention is fixed on the Blagojevich scandal — coming as it does in President-elect Barack Obama’s home state and replete as it is with enough tape-recorded talk of peddling a Senate seat, shaking down contributors and blackmailing journalists to make even FBI agents blush — it may not be the most troublesome one for the new president.

His more vexing problem could turn out to be that other, quieter scandal dogging Democrats. That’s the one involving Rep. Charles Rangel, head of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Rep. Rangel is being investigated by the House Ethics Committee for failing to pay taxes on $75,000 in income on a vacation home in the Dominican Republic, for controlling multiple rent-controlled apartments in a Harlem apartment building, for using congressional stationery to raise money for a center named in his honor and, most recently and seriously, for helping a donor to his center win a tax loophole in return for a contribution.

Rep. Rangel has repeatedly and vociferously denied any wrongdoing, and he actually sought the Ethics Committee inquiry initially to clear his name.

Without doubt, the Blagojevich scandal is more audacious, and, because it involves the filling of Mr. Obama’s own Senate seat, might seem more potentially damaging to the new president. More broadly, it’s possibly a sign that Illinois could become to President Obama what Arkansas was to President Bill Clinton: a source of continuing political headaches back home.

Yet in many ways, the very fact that Gov. Blagojevich’s behavior seems so over the top makes it easier for Mr. Obama to deal with it. He can simply ask, as he has, that the governor quit and go away. It helps the Obama cause enormously, of course, that Gov. Blagojevich is on tape cursing the president-elect’s team for failing to go along with his pay-to-play scheme for filling the Senate seat, and that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald virtually cleared the Obama team in his public remarks on the case.

More than that, whatever ties Gov. Blagojevich and his cohorts may have had to Mr. Obama in the past, they will have little to do with his future in Washington.

Not so Rep. Rangel. For Mr. Obama, the Blagojevich investigation and prosecution soon will be something going on back home. The Rangel drama will play out right in the president-elect’s new front yard.

This is the result of years of Democrats covering for their own. Now, I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Rangel…sure, he’s a pinko and a pain in the you-know-what, but he’s a Marine and a genuine political character. But he’s also never been called to account by his own side, and now it appears that decades of un-watched power has slowly moved Rangel from a hard-fighting man of the people into yet another money-grubbing political hack.

We’ve always had corruption in government, but I don’t think America has ever seen the breathtaking scale of corruption the Democrats have engaged in over the past couple decades. Sure, there have been plenty of corrupt GOPers, too, but those GOPers – even one of relatively minor sins like Foley – are out or isolated…corrupt Democrats tend to either go on as if nothing ever happened, or are found safe havens by the party after surrendering their seat to avoid losing it to the GOP. Several decades of hardly ever getting caught and special favors for those who get caught have bred in Democratic leaders the presumption that they can do whatever they please. Rangel has fallen victim to this mindset.

But not just Rangel – one only has to consider the fact that Blagojevich (as of this writing) still hasn’t resigned to understand that, for Democrats, corruption is something which can be worked out. Blago seems to be holding out in the expectation that the Democrat party will fix things up for him, as it has in the past. Alas, he doesn’t understand that he’s committing the one sin recognized in the Democratic party – he’s placing Democrat control of the Illinois governorship at risk. Such a thing cannot be tolerated – and so Blago is going to shorty find out a life times worth of effort on behalf of Democratic party is good for. Nothing.

For Obama, the problem is that he will be the head of this party of corruption – this Caucus of Corruption, as it were – and the people are expecting Obama to clean house…but giving somone a shovel and actually getting a hole dug are two different things. Obama has to go after corruption, but this will largely entail going after Democrats as the GOP has been repeatedly purged of corruption over the past four years or so. Will Obama show the courage of his convictions, or will he roll over to the Democrat powers that be?

If we are to have real change we can beleive in, then the best place to stop is on Barack Obama – all corrupt and corrupting elements have to be removed from positions of authority, and Obama must lead the charge, or be shown to be a mere political hack with a slick speaking style.