Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA)
As the Charles Rangel saga continues to unwind, it seems there is conflict going on within the Democrats in the House of Representatives as well as in Rangel's own statements. The below-linked article is from The Hill. (It is a few days old.)
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/111557-ethics-trial-set-for-1-pm-rangel-digs-in-for-a-fight
So, on the one hand, Rangel throws out that well-known code word "lynching" to describe his situation with the House and the up-coming ethics trial. He talks about how eager he is to tell his side of the story (a'la Rod Blogoyevich). Yet, if that is the case, why have his lawyers been negotiating a deal with the Ethics Committee? One does not negotiate with his or her own lynch party, does one?
Then there is this from the Chairwoman of the Congressional Black Congress, Barbara Lee (D-CA):
Lee said in a written statement: "Any rush to judgment to short-circuit the ongoing review of Congressman Rangel by the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct will do a disservice to the well-established processes of the House of Representatives. Attempts by Republicans and Democrats to presume guilt before the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct completes its review of the facts, which are only known to them and Congressman Rangel, violates the core American principle of the presumption of innocence."
Fair enough, but realistically speaking, it looks like a veiled warning from the Black Congressional Caucus, and even though she mentions Republicans, it is her fellow Democrats who are in charge of the process, as they are in charge of the House of Representatives. Thus, the real fight is within the Democrat Party.
Yet, there is this from James Clyburn (D-SC):
“Those Tea Party people that showed up at the health care debate, they will not hesitate for one moment to racialize something,” said Mr. Clyburn, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. “They did, and they will.”
(Hot Air)
That's right, Clyburn. Blame it all on the Tea Party.
So is this what it ultimately comes down to-race? What Rangel is accused of has nothing to do with race. What Maxine Waters is charged with has nothing to do with race-nor should it. Hopefully, these matters will not be another example of racial politics. Yet, that is what the Democrats and other "progressives" continue to push; the tribalization of America. Will we now see the Democrats in Congress be divided along racial lines by the scandals surrounding Rangel and Waters?
In all fairness, and I have to bend over backwards to point this out, history is full of instances where "corruption" charges were used as a thinly veiled cover for getting rid of
ReplyDeletea) political opponents, and,
b) specifically, after Reconstruction, anyone black serving in legislative or other government capacities.
That does not, however, seem particularly relevant to Rep. Rangel's case, or Rep. Lee's, and it does demean the long history of fighting against real racial prejudice in our government, to invoke it, even by implication, as a last-ditch cover.
Lynching, by origin, was simply a mob taking the law into their own hands, sometimes hanging a man guilty and fully deserving it, sometimes an entirely innocent man (cf. The Oxbow Incident). According to statistics maintained by the Tuskegee Institute, the majority of people lynched prior to around 1890 were "white," after that time in became increasingly a practice visited upon people deemed "black," and by 1930 or so, almost exclusively a tool of white supremacy. My own state is recorded as having hosted six lynchings, all of them of "white" people.
Lynching doesn't seem quite the thing to invoke here, but as Gary notes, Rep. Barbara Lee is correct in her statement that due process should be followed.
Siarlys,
ReplyDeleteJust watch as Maxine Waters turns this into a racial issue.