The Rangel Affair and "Leak Week": Still Milking 9/11

Alex Wong/Getty Images

If you’ve been follow The BAG since it was a bag, you’ll remember this classic from September 13, 2002 (which I had the opportunity to think back on a thousand times during the reign of Bush II).  But, what’s that phrase… the more things change the more they stay the same? In the face of the media and the Administration’s “what’s new?” reaction to the Wikileak’s Afghan War Logs this week, the basis for getting away with it, sadly and still again, remains the battle to avenge 9/11.

In trying to cope with the crushing disappointment of the week’s non-event (so wickedly captured by former TPM video maven Ben Craw), I near lost my breath this morning when I found this photo.  Taken yesterday, it shows power-mad Charlie Rangel using New York’s war fatalities as wallpaper the day before the House Ethics Committee finally gave up on making a deal with him and brought charges. Rangel’s people set up two of these posters just outside his office, quite the backdrop for fending off reporters.

There he stands with America’s martyrs, wearing that grin of denial, at the end of a hallway lined with American flags. At the end of this week, especially, what utter, utter arrogance.