Letter: Congress sets a bad ethics example
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) takes part in a meeting on caring for veterans PTSD care on Capitol Hill in Washington. (May 26, 2010) Credit: AP
I would like to bring up the cases of two other people who, as your editorial states about Sam Eshaghoff, flunked their ethics tests ["SAT impostor flunks his ethics test," Editorial, Jan. 4].
One of them, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Manhattan), was blaming his staff and everybody else he could think of for his income tax oversights, as he called them. What would be the consequences if you or I did not fully pay our taxes for 17 years?
The other is former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Forest Hills), who also blamed everyone else when indecent pictures surfaced: hackers, enemies. When they finally traced the pictures back to Weiner, he finally owned up to the lewd conduct and resigned from Congress.
All of them expressed regret for what they did, but only after they had been caught. The only one who didn't blame everyone else was Sam Eshaghoff. And he is the only one who gets a criminal penalty for his offense.
Paul Rosenfeld, Syosset
