EDITORIAL: Ethics for Sale

Is Charlie Rangel worried that the House Ethics Committee — notorious for handing out little more than a slap on the wrist for even the most egregious congressional misconduct — might make an exception in his case?

Maybe that’s why the embattled Harlem Democrat has been playing Santa Claus with his House colleagues, doling out more campaign cash from his own re-election kitty than almost any other member of Congress.

Among the 119 lucky recipients: three of the five Democrats on the House Ethics Committee.

The same people who are meant to be probing the growing list of his financial “oversights” and deciding what, if any, punishment to mete out.

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(Editorial, “Ethics’ for Sale,” New York Post, 9/06/09)