From the NY Post:A day after suffering the humiliation of having the House ethics committee recommend he get a formal censure, Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel isn't getting any lifelines from the White House or from powerful Democratic allies.
With a House floor vote set to come up after Thanksgiving on censure, Vice President Joe Biden said the decision was "hard to argue against."
Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-Queens) said committee Democrats might have gone for censure -- the strongest punishment short of outright expulsion -- because "they want to avoid a floor fight" with Republicans, who could have tried to force the graver punishment if the committee had gone for a wrist slap or reprimand.
Rangel had been hoping for a lesser punishment, but instead he got hit with a report calling for censure and ordering him to pay back taxes after being found guilty of 11 charges.
Rangel's Harlem political allies seemed resigned that the punishment of censure would stick but insisted that the stinging rebuke would not damage the congressman's standing among his uptown constituents.
