…there are so many instructive items in this video it’s hard to catalog all of them. But just watch it first…

First, as Allahpundit mentions at Hot Air…

“We are a political body,” he acknowledged sadly in his floor speech after the vote, and darned if Democrats didn’t prove him right. First they offered an amendment that would have reduced his punishment to a mere reprimand instead of the Ethics Committee’s recommendation of censure. A clear majority of them voted yes on that, simply because a reprimand would have spared him the baby wrist slap of having to stand before the House during the reading of a censure resolution.

Second, the speech itself, where Rangel says he won’t be judged by this Congress but by his maker, is beyond pathetic. Rangel offers no contrition at all, despite the fact his case was so completely open and shut that a Democrat-led panel found him guilty on 11 of 13 counts of cheating on his taxes while heading the committee that writes tax law.

And finally, the bizarre scene of Rangel being applauded while being censured. This from the “most ethical Congress ever.” That this man wasn’t expelled from Congress on his way to federal prison indicates perfectly what a fraud Nancy Pelosi perpetrated on the American people, and why it is supreme justice that these people are being consigned to irrelevance in the next Congress.

The one question we have is, where is Joe Wilson during Rangel’s speech? This slimeball should have been hooted down during his self-serving, smarmy remarks, if not pelted with rotten produce. Instead, he’s applauded by fellow slimeballs while Republicans sit in polite silence.

We’re too nice to these people. What we need is more of this…

UPDATE: Turns out the reason Rangel gave up at his ethics trial is he got word he was about to be confronted with a bunch of business people he had shaken down over the years. Donald Trump and Ivan Seidelman (Verizon’s CEO) being two of them.

This guy should thank his lucky stars all he got was a public bitching-out in the House rather than getting to be somebody’s private bitch in the Big House.