Nancy Pelosi Enables "Culture of Corruption"

Even as the country reels from the seamy details of the Blagojevich scandal, Nancy Pelosi is standing firmly by her man, Charlie Rangel, resisting any effort to remove him from his committee chairmanship -- despite credible allegations against him of tax avoidance and other chicanery.

Neither party does as well as it ought in prospectively tossing out wrongdoers. But once credible allegations of wrongdoing are tendered, Republicans do tend to clean house, where Democrats rally 'round (some of the difference may be attributable to the way the press covers one party's scandals vs. the other's, as noted here).

It's remarkable that Nancy Pelosi would rather defend Charlie Rangel's prerogatives than clean House. That, coupled with the irony of Rangel continuing to head the committee that writes legislation raising our taxes -- even as it appears he may have declined to pay his own -- seems to be sending a message that would have made Leona Helmsley proud: Paying taxes is just for the "little people" . . . or those not fortunate enough to hold government office.

Is this really the way the Democrats want to kick off their overwhelming majority session?