Rangel Insists Ethics Tumult Will Pass

This is what defiance looks like: a figure in a dark business suit, gold pocket square and silver pompadour, refusing to be driven from the job he loves.

Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), 78, addressing two visitors in his office near the House chamber, says he won’t cave in to Republicans and other critics who demand that he step aside as chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee until the ethics cloud surrounding him clears.

“When they call you everything and just repeat every week, every day, accusations, it’s discomfortable,” Rangel said last week in an interview, in between trips to the House chamber for speeches and votes.

“But, hey, I’m not in a nursing home hearing that. I’m on the job, trying to deal with disaster and tax extensions and energy and peace and trying to get the hell out of this fiscal crisis that our country finds itself in.”

Read more: (Christopher Lee and Lyndsey Layton, “Rangel Insists Ethics Tumult Will Pass; In New York and Washington, Support for Lawmaker Appears to Be Steady,” The Washington Post, 9/28/08)