It's good to be chairman of House Ways and Means

The House Ethics Committee has tacked on one more investigation to its probe of the Ways and Means chairman, Charlie Rangel. Does this sound a tad fishy to you?

The New York Times has reported that Rangel met with Nabors CEO Eugene Isenberg on Feb. 12, 2007 — the same day that Rangel’s Ways and Means Committee was marking up a major tax bill with implications for Nabors. The Senate Finance Committee had already adopted legislation closing a lucrative tax loophole for Nabors, and Isenberg wanted assurances from Rangel that he would not back the Senate bill, the paper said.

Earlier that morning, Isenberg, Rangel and Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau had met to discuss Isenberg’s $1 million contribution to the Rangel Center, the Times reported.

Both Rangel and Isenberg have denied any link between the $1 million gift and Rangel’s stance on the loophole.

Rangel might be smart enough not to have said anything explicit about a quid pro quo . But some things don't have to be stated in the open for people to know what is happening. It seems that the only differences between Blagojevich and Rangel are that Rangel didn't have a federal prosecutor wire-tapping his phones and probably that Rangel wasn't as deeply stupid as Blagojevich when it came to getting benefits in return for favors.