From Thursday night’s Fox-News All-Stars.
On Charlie Rangel’s ethics trial versus a plea deal:
For Democrats it’s lose-lose. I think it’s worse if you get a trial simply because it becomes a spectacle. It’s on television every day. It reminds people. If you have a deal, it’s a one-day story, a two-day story. It is an issue that’ll be raised [by congressional candidates] over and over again, but it‘s not going to be a national story every day.
We haven’t had a trial since James Traficant … And I hate to see Rangel in that category. I think what’s really interesting here is that through his lawyers he seemed to be ready to concede or compromise on what you might call the venial sins, the ones that come when you become a chairman — powerful, you get used to the kingly accoutrements of the office and [he might admit that] he stepped over the line on perks.
But he seems really resistant to admitting to the misuse of office. There’s this one charge that in order to solicit a million dollars for the Rangel Center at the City University in New York, he, at least in the charge, was considering giving a tax break to the individual and the company.
Now that’s corruption. And that’s what I think he’s holding out on because I don’t think he ever wants to admit that. That would be a stain on a heroic life and career, and I think he will hold out on that and fight.
On President Obama’s appearance on “The View” in order to reach out to female voters:
The reason I think this will not move any needle is because when you’re a challenger, you are a newcomer, charm works, and you can get elected on charm. Once you have been in office and you want to be reelected, that is a referendum on governance, not on charm.
Everyone knows he is charming. But the issue is, can he run a government? And on that, there is a lot of skepticism.
On the revelation that the woman who stood next to Obama during his Rose Garden statement calling for extending unemployment benefits is unemployed after pleading guilty to felony prescription drug fraud, and had another charge of felony grand larceny in 2007:
When you have ten million unemployed and you can’t find three that are clean, you have a competence issue.
Can this gang shoot straight? That event happened, the press conference happened on the day of the Sherrod firing.
And this is a group that wants to run national health care, run cap-and-trade, and is dispensing $1 trillion of stimulus money as we speak.