Rep. Charlie Rangel seems to be trying to come to the defense of members of the Congressional Black Caucus who are no longer voting in lockstep with left-wing economics. But the results are a bit unfortunate:
A recent editorial on BlackCommentator.com criticized caucus members who voted for the bankruptcy and estate-tax bills, accusing them of being bought off by corporations and wealthy campaign donors and betraying core Democratic values.
But Rep. Charles B. Rangel, New York Democrat and another founding member of the caucus, said the notion the caucus is losing cohesion is ridiculous.
“Why any member would be voting for the bankruptcy bill or estate-tax repeal or for making the tax cuts permanent or any of those things is just stupid, but it doesn’t tear us apart because whether it is a speaker or a member, we only have one vote,” he said.
“We have to be very, very tolerant of a person that votes stupid, because they may think they have a good reason and they are the ones who come down here, so you may think the vote is stupid but they know what they are doing,” Mr. Rangel said.
