EDITORIAL: Welcome to Rangelworld

vRep. Charlie Rangel is spitting mad that the House ethics committee admonished him for accepting more than $3,000 in improper freebie travel on Caribbean junkets. As always in Rangelworld, everyone is to blame except the powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

The tale of Rangel’s travels is a tangled one. The Carib News Foundation, a nonprofit organization, hosted members of Congress at resort stays. The group said corporate donors would not bankroll the events. The ethics panel gave its blessing.

Then it turned out the foundation let big firms underwrite its bashes. So the committee ordered five representatives, including Yvette Clark of Brooklyn, to pony up the cost of their trips.

The panel ordered Rangel to pay as well – while slamming him for taking one of the trips in the first place because at least one member of Rangel’s staff, counsel Michelle Sherwood, knew about the corporate sponsorships.

A memo gives solid grounds for so concluding. She warned him HSBC bank intended “to pull their financial support” from a 2008 conference, while reporting, “As of today, the foundation’s other major sponsor ATT is holding strong.”

In Rangelworld, Sherwood’s acknowledgement of corporate backing is meaningless piffle.

Read more: (Editorial, “Welcome to Rangelworld,” New York Daily News, 2/28/10)