Liberals Dismiss Rangel Scandal

RUSH: Nancy Pelosi was asked (we got the audio coming up), ‘Charlie Rangel. I mean, you understand here why people think Congress is so corrupt?’ ‘Well, yeah. But his corruption didn’t jeopardize the country, so I don’t see any need to do anything about it.’ Rangel’s corruption didn’t jeopardize the country. So there’s no need to do anything. Do these people not get how screwed they are going to be come November? Do they not get it? They don’t care. That’s the answer.

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RUSH: Yeah, there she is again. There’s Pelosi. You know what? I’m going to tell you what. Here’s the way we have to start looking at Nancy Pelosi: Mullah Nancy bin Pelosi. She’s no different than these mullahs and these imams who convince all these people to put bombs on their kids and send ’em out there to blow up. That’s exactly what she’s doing to the Democrat Party. The only thing she can’t do is promise them 72 virgins or whatever it is. But that’s in essence what she’s doing here, and I have a great explanation as for why. Andy McCarthy wrote an expansion on a theory of mine that I’ve been promulgating here for many weeks. But first, Sunday morning, This Week, the fill-in host Elizabeth Vargas talking to Nancy Pelosi. ‘You understand, I mean, with Charlie Rangel. You promised the most ethical Congress in history, and — and, I mean, you gotta understand now why so many Americans think Congress is corrupt. It just doesn’t look good. This Rangel thing just doesn’t pass the smell test.’

PELOSI: Look, I — I served for seven years on the ethics committee. The last thing I would have wanted would be for the Speaker of the House to interfere in a political way in what was going on there. That just should never happen. Uh, but the fact is — is that, uh, w-w-what Mr. Rangel has been admonished for is not good. It was, uh, uh, a violation of the rule of the House. Uh, it was not something that, uhhh, jeopardized our country in any way.

RUSH: Oh, no! Of course not. No, no, no. Folks, how could the fact that one of the most powerful men in Congress is corrupt have any effect on America? I mean, after all, all he does is write the tax law. He’s chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. He doesn’t have any effect on America. No way. Don’t even tell me he’s in the same league as Tom DeLay, who they had to force out of there. Here’s Pelosi back from November 7th, 2006, election night.

PELOSI: To-day the American people voted to restore integrity and honesty in Washington, DC. And the Democrats in-tend to lead the most honest, most open, and most ethical Congress in history.

RUSH: Yeah. Yeah. Big dream there. Typical of everything the Democrats say: It’s a lie and is not true. Here’s Paul Krugman from the New York Times. He was on This Week as well during the roundtable, and Elizabeth Vargas says, ‘Speaker Pelosi, Steny Hoyer were all calling for Tom DeLay to relinquish his post when he was also admonished by the ethics committee.’

KRUGMAN: It is worth pointing out that none of these things actually seemed to affect national policy. Yeah, I’m unhappy with this. I wish Rangel would go away. But it — it really has no national significance.

RUSH: Oh, no national significance at all! Oh, he’s only chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. He’s cheating on his taxes. He’s not reporting income. He makes Tom DeLay look like a piker. ‘Oh, but we have to keep him there. He’s in so important a position, the Democrats so important to America. I don’t like this. No, no. I’m unhappy with it.’ Who cares whether you’re happy or not with it? Who are you? Paul Krugman? Who cares? Now we go this morning on MSNBC, Joe Scarborough says to Senator Durbin, ‘You served with Charlie. I served with Charlie. Are you disappointed?’

DURBIN: I want to tell you one thing about Charlie Rangel. When he joined the Army after World War II as an African-American, he was put in a segregated unit. He served in combat in Korea. This man has served his country. I am not going to presume, uhhh, guilt when it comes to Charlie Rangel.

RUSH: Charlie Rangel is a veteran, so who cares if he’s corrupt? What’s that got to do with the dog food? Democrats are just not going to eat the dog food on this and send Charlie packing. He served in North Korea. Who cares? He’s corrupt. Don’t forget (doing Lantos impression), Admiral Boorda committed suiciiiiide for far less.’ Remember that? Tom Lantos. So the conversation continued over ethics and Rangel this morning on MSNBC.

SCARBOROUGH: Have you ever forgotten to report $500,000 on a congressional —

BRZEZINSKI: Should we worry about that?

SCARBOROUGH: Have you ever done that? Have you ever forgotten —

SERWER: I think the answer is no.

SCARBOROUGH: He just said ‘no’ with a smile on his face.

RUSH: Durbin would not say if he ever went on a trip and didn’t know who paid for it. Rangel took a bunch of trips, not just one. Ah, my staff did that, I didn’t know anything about it. He’s also blamed his wife for this kind of stuff.

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RUSH: This is Joe in St. Louis, and welcome to the EIB Network, sir. Hello.

CALLER: You know, Rush, I bet if you asked some college students they could tell you how evil Christopher Columbus was.

RUSH: Oh, yeah. There’s no question.

CALLER: The reason I called is: Why don’t you dig that sound bite of Nancy Pelosi way back in the beginning when she said, ‘We won the election, we write the bills. Period, end of story.’

RUSH: Well, we could try to find that. (laughing) It would fit right in with the fact she’s Mullah Nancy bin Pelosi. ‘We won the election, we write…’ That’s like Obama (doing impression), ‘Well, I know you guys want to cut taxes, but I won. Ha-ha. Screw you,’ and they did win. This is what happens. Elections do have consequences.