Can’t have that:

Step Aside, Rep. Rangel
The chairman of Ways and Means becomes an unnecessary distraction.

WHEN WE last wrote about Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, we urged that the House ethics committee be allowed to investigate before anyone drew final conclusions. But the latest revelation of Mr. Rangel’s ethical tin ear is the most galling yet. While he remains innocent until proven otherwise, he should step aside as chairman while the ethics committee expands its inquiry.

(Snip of stuff that you already know about already.)

At a time when President-elect Barack Obama is holding frequent news conferences to reassure the markets and the American people that he is ready to lead the nation to economic recovery, the last thing he will need is a chairman of Ways and Means caught up in a swirl of serious allegations.

While I appreciate the desire of the Washington Post to enter unto the side of righteousness on this issue, I do wish that they had not couched it in terms of trying to protect its investment. Then again, doing otherwise might have required them to explain why they’ve suddenly started caring about a Democratic Congressman with his hand in the till.

Just saying.

I like Hot Air’s choice so much that I’m going to duplicate it:

“I would like to be a person remembered as a person who, first and foremost, did not sell his soul in order to accommodate the political process. I came to Washington with a set of values, and I’m leaving with the same set of values. And I darn sure wasn’t going to sacrifice those values.”

Some of you have until January 20, 2009 to enjoy - if that’s the right word - your peculiarly maltheistic religion being indulged by the Democratic Party. Once your devil figure is out of office, you will be expected to drop the subject forthwith; but please don’t, just because I’m bringing it up. Increasing the speed by which you become irrelevant will only be a help.

Via Hot Air, the hostage crisis at Mumbai’s Chabad-Lubavitch Center ends precisely as I feared:

3 Americans killed at Mumbai Jewish center

MUMBAI, India - Commandos who stormed the Mumbai headquarters of an ultra-orthodox Jewish group on Friday found the bodies of five hostages inside — a New York rabbi and his wife as well as three others. The rabbi and two other men were American citizens, while his wife and another woman were Israeli.

The office was one of 10 sites attacked by gunmen on Wednesday and Thursday in a spree that killed more than 150 people in India’s financial capital, including at least 14 foreigners. Local officials earlier provided a higher number but that could not be confirmed.

Early Friday night, Indian commandos emerged from the besieged Jewish center with rifles raised in an apparent sign of victory after the daylong siege that saw a team rappel from helicopters and a series of explosions and fire rock the building and blow gaping holes in the wall.

About the only good news from this is that the young baby of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Noach was saved from this barbarous attack. Our prayers and good wishes to the victims and their families/loved ones.

I have nothing else to add that will not result in me looking for someone to punch.

Moe Lane

I’m sort of sneaking this one in.

Anyway, while you’re waiting for the turkey to finish basting check out this Politico article about the Great Netroot Betrayal over Iraq. The title says it all: “Doves keep the faith as Obama team tilts right”. This should be a fun few months, no?

Lots of good River-in-Egypt moments, but this was especially good:

Still, President Obama sounds a lot better than President Bush to a peace movement whose members have spent the last seven years in a posted of principled, if often powerless, opposition—and who now have to find a new point of orientation.

Because What will be much more interesting will be seeing the new point of orientation for the members of the peace movement who are unhinged maniacs with no historical sense, and even less of a moral one. For one thing, they outnumber the principled members by about nine to one.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Moe Lane

Putting together details now: preliminary reports are of armed attackers (automatic rifles, grenades). Some indication that Westerners are being targeted.

More as it comes in.

UPDATE: Via AoSHQ:

Terrorists Target Mumbai Hotels

Unknown terrorists have conducted a coordinated attack across Mumbai’s major tourist hubs, with over a dozen deaths and many injuries reported.

Gunmen have targeted luxury hotels, a popular tourist attraction and a crowded train station in at least seven attacks across India’s financial capital.

Terrorists are reportedly still holed up at in three places, including Oberoi and Taj hotels.

The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) are advising all Britons in Mumbai to stay indoors.

The FCO also report a further explosion near Mumbai airport.

The death toll is unknown. Officials have said at least 25 people have been wounded.

Reuters are reporting at least 18 fatalities.

The Times of India are reporting as many as 80 people killed and 250 injured in the attacks.

Everything further under the fold.

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Most of you will have to listen to the usual bores who have been babbling about how Iraq has been some sort of secular Armageddon. Anyway, gird your loins beforehand with this round-up from Jules Crittenden (via Glenn Reynolds) - and, free advice? A simple head-cocking and quizzical “So if you guys won, then why are you trying to spin away the next President’s Cabinet picks?” should pay dividends.

Alternatively, you can just indulgently murmur “Of course you did,” and take a second helping of pie. Progressives hate not being taken seriously, particularly when it’s by us.

Brennan Withdraws From Consideration for Administration Post

Win for them, I guess.

That’s pretty much the lineup.

Do you know what this means?

It means that Joe Biden is going to be the single most useless Vice President in the history of the Vice Presidency - which is impressive, considering the people that we’ve had populating that office. He’s going to go from being Senate Foreign Relations Chair to The Guy Waiting To See If Obama Keels Over. Because if the President-elect wanted Biden to have any kind of substantive job with foreign affairs, we’d be hearing stories about Biden’s continuing input and presence. In fact, we’d hear stories about Biden, period. I mean, shoot, he’s probably not even going to get to do all the really cool foreign visits that Vice Presidents get to do. After all, that’s what Bill Hillary (and her husband comes along) is for.

And Biden will never, ever, be President of the United States.

It’s weird. I’ll start to sorry for the man, but then I’ll remember the day that he decided that he wanted this job more than anything else in the world, and then… I’ll stop.

…if that would require them to subpoena one of Obama’s own Cabinet members?

Oh, right: they realistically can’t. Add that to the list of Things The Netroots Aren’t Getting For Christmas.

It’s almost certain that one of these potential Blue on Blue conflicts (via Hot Air Headlines) will involve a relevant member of Congress for you; one that might and should be contacted so that you may politely express your opinion on how he or she should vote.

Time to start thinking in these terms, ladies and gentlemen. Our opposite numbers do.

After all, political dynasties are actually not uncommon in American political history: but ones named “Biden?”

I mean, really. Biden?

Biden replacement creates blowback
By: Andy Barr
November 25, 2008 10:13 AM EST

Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner’s (D) decision to appoint Vice President-elect Joe Biden’s longtime aide Ted Kaufman to the Senate has upset local Democrats who believe the move was a ham-handed attempt to engineer the election of Biden’s son, Beau, to the Senate in 2010.

By selecting Kaufman, who has said he would serve only two years before a special election is held in 2010, Minner bypassed other interested Delaware pols and ensured that Beau Biden would have a clearer opportunity to succeed his father in the Senate.

Beau Biden, the state’s attorney general, is currently serving in Iraq as part of the Delaware National Guard.

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Just so you know, people will keep asking this question. Including, these days, the New York Times:

The Congressman, the Donor and the Tax Break

Representative Charles B. Rangel has helped raise $11 million for a City College of New York school of public service to be named in his honor. In recent months, as questions have emerged about his fund-raising, he has insisted that he has kept his efforts to attract donors scrupulously separate from his official duties in Congress.

But Congressional records and interviews show that Mr. Rangel was instrumental in preserving a lucrative tax loophole that benefited an oil-drilling company last year, while at the same time its chief executive was pledging $1 million to the project, the Charles B. Rangel School of Public Service at C.C.N.Y.

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I’d just like to note that there are four Senators that Harry Reid should not have tried to go after this election cycle.

Collins.
Lieberman.
McConnell.
Snowe.

So far, I count that he’s ticked off two, and is now busy bootlicking the third. And I don’t know that he’s done any better with Snowe. Come to think of it, it’s Reid: he probably went to her house and shot her dog.

Best.
Senate Majority Leader.
EVER.

I’m noting this article by the WSJ:

Ordinarily, defendants seeking a pardon file a petition with the Justice Department, which then makes a recommendation to the White House. Mr. Rich’s legal team went directly to the White House, and the president spoke with one of the Rich lawyers, Jack Quinn, who had worked as White House counsel. The Justice Department maintained that it hadn’t been told of the pardon request until the day before Mr. Clinton granted it.

Mr. Quinn said he had told Mr. Holder the previous November of his intention to seek a pardon for his client, and he got the impression that the Justice Department wouldn’t oppose these efforts. He produced an email to a colleague in which he noted that Mr. Holder “says go straight to wh. also says timing is good. we shd get in soon.”

…mostly because it allows me to offer our Senators some friendly advice on this, and all confirmation hearings:

• Make ‘em talk. Ask short questions requiring long, complex answers. This isn’t about you guys; it’s about the people you’ve got on the griddle.

• Make ‘em keep talking. A casual “Go on.” after the first long, convoluted answer finally ends will pay dividends.

• Have the last Republican be the one keeping notes, so as to catch all the contradictions that come up thanks to the first two points. Good excuse for demanding extra time there, too.

• Then force a cloture vote anyway. Just because.

“I think the media performed flawlessly during the two year election cycle. They managed the story, shielded their candidate, attacked the opposition, sat on damaging stories, and in short did everything a good state run media should do during an election cycle.”

• Shots Across The Bow (H/T: Instapundit)

Note the use of the word “Another.” Via Instapundit:

Another Tax Issue Surfaces for Rangel

WASHINGTON — Representative Charles B. Rangel’s legal team is reviewing his tax records to determine whether the congressman received a homestead exemption on a house he owned in Washington while living in several rent-stabilized apartments in New York City.

The situation is potentially troublesome for Mr. Rangel, a Harlem Democrat who is already the subject of a wide-ranging internal House investigation stemming from an assortment of ethical concerns.

[snip]

Republicans have criticized Mr. Rangel, claiming that he has made a mockery of the Democratic Party’s promise to reform Washington’s political culture when it took control of the House in 2006. Republicans have demanded that he step down as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, which writes the nation’s tax laws and is one of the most powerful panels in Congress.

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They’re now saying that it’s going to be delayed a tad. Via AoSHQ.

And how much is a tad?

…I’m guessing that that was probably contraindicated. She’s starting in with Obama’s own inner circle, and I fully expect her to steadily work her way outward:

Before Hillary Clinton has been formally offered the job as Secretary of State, a purge of Barack Obama’s top foreign policy team has begun.

The advisers who helped trash the former First Lady’s foreign policy credentials on the campaign trail are being brutally shunted aside, as the price of her accepting the job of being the public face of America to the world. In negotiations with Mr Obama this week before agreeing to take the job, she demanded and received assurances that she alone should appoint staff to the State Department. She also got assurances that she will have direct access to the President and will not have to go through his foreign policy advisers on the National Security Council, which is where many of her critics in the Obama team are expected to end up.

The first victims of Mrs Clinton’s anticipated appointment will be those who defended Mr Obama’s flanks on the campaign trail. By mocking Mrs Clinton’s claims to have landed under sniper fire in Bosnia or pouring scorn on her much-ballyhooed claim to have visited 80 countries as First Lady they successfully deflected the damaging charge that he is a lightweight on international issues.

Before we go any further, I just thought that I’d note something. A very common criticism of President Bush is that he is too loyal to his people, often protecting them at the cost of his own personal political capital.

I don’t think that this is ever going to be said about President Obama.

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And thanks for letting us know that there are those among you who are willing to badmouth your boss for the papers:

But a little after lunch on Wednesday two Obama aides went to a local coffee shop to talk. Both were veterans of the campaign, hailed as the best organised and most disciplined in US history, which has made their boss the first black president.

Both had come to believe, in the crucible of the campaign, that Mr Obama’s judgment was superior to their own. But when they met on Wednesday they agreed on one thing: “He’s making a mistake.” As one of the participants told a friend later that night: “She’ll do a good job but she’ll do it for herself, not for Barack. I can’t bear the drama again.”

She, of course, is Hillary Clinton, former First Lady, figurehead of Democratic women, presidential candidate with 18 million votes and now would-be Secretary of State.

Glad to see that they’re fitting in nicely. Somebody will call.

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I’m flabbergasted that someone as bright as Megan is actually surprised that Obama might decide to value looks over substance on domestic policy now that the election’s safely over. She did notice the “D” after the man’s name, yes? He has to throw his base some kind of bone, particularly since he’s betraying them on foreign policy.

Personally, I blame Andrew Sullivan. Although Buck Naked Politics (who will be bemused at the link, probably: that site doesn’t like people like us) is ever-so-smilingly noting that Sullivan’s starting to visit Objective Reality. I’m thinking that he’ll be attacking the President daily no later than, oh, July of 2009…