TV and web sites have been all over the story of Rep. Charles Rangel, the influential chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, who handed over his gavel to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi while he prepares his defense to various ethics violations. Indeed, Rangel could be seen as the very poster boy for political bad behavior: expensive Caribbean junkets paid for by corporations; a rent-controlled Manhattan apartment he sometimes used as campaign headquarters, a Dominican Republic vacation home he didn't report and generally sketchy behavior for a man leading a committee charged with writing tax law.
But while Rangel's crimes were obvious enough to get him caught, one wonders about other low-rent but equally distasteful, criminal scandals, and whether they should -- and why they haven't -- garnered more headlines. Ross Douthat of the New York Times tries to put it all in perspective.
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