Hell Hath No Fury Like Charlie Rangel Scorned

Wasn't it New York Congressman Charlie Rangel who urged Hillary Clinton to run for the Senate in 2000? Wasn't it also he who, not a week or two ago, was talking up her presidential candidacy in 2008?

So what's the explanation for this?

Representative Charlie Rangel is blasting ex-President Bill Clinton as "a redneck" after New York Senator Hillary Clinton refused for the second year in a row to support his bill to help the mother of police shooting victim Amadou Diallo stay in the country."

I don’t have the slightest clue who Hillary really is," the dismayed Harlem Democrat tells New York Magazine this week. "All I see is a gal who knew she was as good as anyone else, and she saw this guy she could make something of, so she forfeited Illinois and went to Arkansas.

Rangel then added, "That’s a hell of a move to make for a redneck, which is all he was."

Asked on Tuesday morning if he really thought Clinton was a redneck, Rangel told WWRL Radio's Steve Malzberg and Karen Hunter: "Of course he is. He's from Arkansas."

Holy cow. Either Rangel likes to live dangerously, or else he's upgraded his personal security of late.

OTOH, you'll note that (1) it was Mrs. Clinton who stiffed him on his pet legislation, and yet (2) he took his verbal pound of flesh out of Mr. Bill's hide. Though I suppose you could say he implied that Hillary's path to power was not the one orthodox feminism recommends. Still, it's very revealing about who wears the pants...er, who can keep the pants up...um, which Clinton is really feared.

Even then, it didn't take him long to start back-pedaling:

Later in the interview Rangel tried to backpedal, telling Malzberg he thought the Clintons were "terrific people."

"You have to remember, you know, Lyndon Johnson was one of the best presidents we had and he was a redneck out of Texas," he explained.

Spin, spin, spin.

Some are even suggesting that this was an anti-white racist slur on Rangel's part, which would probably be an eye-opener to Jeff Foxworthy. I don't know if I would go that far, but I tend to look at his remarks through the same prism that Trent Lott's birthday toast to Strom Thurmond was filtered. Was Senator Lott extolling segregation? No, he was just trying to make an old man feel good. Was Senator Lott's comment cast in anything resembling a forgiving light? Not a chance. So why should Congressman Rangel be cut any more slack?

Ditto new DNC Chairman Howie Dean, who last Friday, in remarks to the Congressional Black Caucus, conjured up the rancid duality of implying that all Republicans are racists by scoffing at the GOP being able to assemble that many African-Americans in the same room, and tossed in a racist remark of his own by adding that "They'd have to bring in the hotel staff."

So all bellhops and janitors and maids are "Step 'N Fetchit" Negroes, Mr. Chairman? Hard to interpret his words any other way. And they wouldn't be interpreted any other way if King Scream was a Republican.

You know who became a catharsis for this sort of one-way-street injustice? Eason Jordan, who, however much credit you want to give to the blogosphere for it, is now out of CNN because of saying something he shouldn't have.

Dean and Rangel will not meet similar fates.

But if Rangel ever loses his mind and disses Mrs. Clinton directly, he may just end up meeting Jimmy Hoffa in the flesh.