DEAD KENNEDYS: Went to a party
I danced all night
I drank 16 beers
And I started up a fight
But now I am jaded
You're out of luck
I'm rolling down the stairs
Too drunk to fuck
Too drunk to fuck
Too drunk to fuck
Too drunk, to fuck
I'm too drunk, too drunk, too drunk
To fuck …
I…'m about to drop
My head's a mess
The only salvation is
I'll never see you again
You give me head
It makes it worse
Take out your fuckin' retainer
Put it in your purse
I'm too drunk to fuck…
I suppose one could call me a bit sentimental about Charlie Rangel, but not too. Back in September, I wrote:
“Charlie Rangel is a great American patriot. He has been heroic in crusading for a fairer tax system and a better health system. He has told unpleasant truths time and again about the impact of fighting wars with a force made up predominately of folks who needs the money and benefits. He’s been indispensable in helping to elect a Democratic majority in Congress.
But, at the very least, Charlie Rangel’s carelessness, if that is indeed what it is, in handling his personal affairs has become a national embarrassment. Perhaps, if he chaired the committee on Foreign Affairs, it would be an embarrassment we could endure.
But, at a time when Democrats hope to greatly expand the services provided through our public sector, to have a Chair of the tax-writing committee who has a casual attitude about his own taxes is highly and dangerously problematic and a serious impediment to the enactment of the programs to which Mr. Rangel has dedicated his career.
It is an embarrassment which makes everything Rangel touches look dubious.
Every Chair of the House Committee on Ways and Means raises shameful amounts of money in a shameful manner to pass onto his party’s candidates. The shamefulness of the protection/access game which attracts this money is so bi-partisan and time-honored that the press largely ignores the very legal scandal which it is.
But there is nothing in Charlie Rangel’s manner of raising such money which should attract any special attention. In fact, by and large, Rangel’s contributors get far less for their money than they did when they gave it to his Republican predecessor.
But now such money attracts special and unwelcome attention to those Democrats to whom Rangel forwards it to, because it came though Rangel. And this is even though the “scandal” which has attached to Rangel has virtually zero to do with the real scandal attached to such money.
There is no doubt in my mind that the public exposure of Rangel’s personal problems probably derives almost entirely from the vast right-wing conspiracy, but that does not make those problems any less real.
Since holding his House seat is a right conveyed to him by the voters, calls for Rangel’s resignation from Congress are premature until voters, or a Judge and Jury, decide otherwise.
However, Congressional Committee Chairmanships are not a right, but a privilege conveyed by a party conference entitled to consider questions of political expediency. Rangel should do his Party and his President a favor and step aside as Chair until his issues are resolved.”
As such, I did not find his exit from Congress a moral imperative, even if I did find his exit from his Chairmanship a political one. But that doesn’t mean it would not be preferable.
But, in the immortal words of Gene McDaniels (as sung by Eddie Harris): “Compared to What?”
Take Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV. Back in 2006, I said: “ In Albany legislative matters, Powell is said by some to make less noise than a mouse pissing upon a blotter.”
In 2007, Jacob Gershman noted: “Of the thousands of bills introduced this year, Mr. Powell can take credit for not a single one. If Mr. Powell doesn't introduce a bill in the next month, he will have made it through three consecutive session years without acting as the prime sponsor of any piece of legislation..”
Truth is, this is really unfair. Adam Powell is personally more responsible for greater substantive reforms in the way Albany operates than practically any single member of the legislature.
Powell was personally responsible for the State Assembly’s ending of decades of frat boy exploitation of female interns as a source of sexual indentured servitude by banning inappropriate fraternization. As an ex-Assembly official noted at the time, "The Assembly intern program is like a 'canned hunt' for these young women…Office assignments for these interns isn't done at random, with interns just being sent to different offices by chance…Assembly members make calls prior to the arrival of the interns in January, or send out scouts to look them over, and then they put in their 'orders' with the staff for the type that they want."
Thank to Powell, that has all come to an end. What other member outside the top leadership can take credit for such substantive accomplishment?
With typical modesty, one never hears Powell brag about the details of how he rammed through this this accomplishment to its ecstatic climax.
He did it by being falsely accused of rape, when all he’d done (at age 42) was ply a 19 year old intern with scotch in his hotel room, despite her being under the legal drinking age, until she consented to have intercourse with him.
Powell worked hard for the rule change, thrusting himself into the issue by creating publicity not only in Albany, but at home as well, where shortly after the Albany incident, he was accused by a 38-year-old woman of having several drinks with her, going back with her to her boyfriend‘s apartment and raping her. Mr. Powell said the alcohol soaked encounter was consensual; and, to be fair, after investigating the matter, the DA did not press charges.
On March 8, 2008, the Daily News reported that Powell had been arrested for drunken driving. He was stopped on the Henry Hudson Parkway about 2:30 a.m. The cops found him with a 31-year-old woman passed out in the backseat of his car. The woman was so drunk that she was taken to St. Luke’s Hospital for several hours of observation. Powell‘s eyes were reportedly glazed and his breathe was said to reek of alcohol. Asked for his driver’s license, he pulled out his Assembly ID. He then apparently pleaded with highway cops to let him go without taking a Breathalyzer test.
This year, the trial finally took place and Powell was convicted of driving while impaired. On the upside, since he never managed to get his companion home, he dodged the bullet of another false rape accusation.
Back in 2006, I noted that, given Powell’s total lack of initiative, the rape stories always seemed dubious. Powell was perhaps the handsomest man in Albany. In the home of “the Bear Mountain Compact”, even the most fiercely ugly people in the world manage to get laid consensually (Yes, I know about J. Michael Boxley, but unlike Powell, Boxley was a man of action). Those who knew Powell best had great doubts about whether he would be capable of ever expending any unnecessary effort.
But it is now clear that I underestimated Powell‘s level of initiative; he has clearly developed an extremely successful modus operandi for facilitating consent, even if his partners don’t always remember that fact (or anything else) in the morning.
No, one cannot call Powell a rapist. While it is impossible to ignore the inherent power imbalance between Powell and the college intern, and Powell’s gross (in every sense of the word) exploitation of it, we can at least note that the women he apparently lubricated with alcohol to induce their consent were all adults (albeit, one was an adult who could not legally buy a drink); that they all made choices, and that no one could prove they did anything against their will.
Perhaps then we should be charitable enough to not judge too harshly the actions of one who was also apparently under the influence in each case, with possibly impaired judgment. Sometime when one is wearing scotch goggles, one’s perception of the wishes of others is impaired as well.
But while misunderstanding in the heat of passion might excuse an unwanted grope, it cannot excuse very much more than that. It certainly cannot excuse sexual activity with those unable to offer consent, not that anyone involved in these instances can apparently attest credibly to any such thing.
However, while recurring patterns of seduction through alcohol induced impairment might not be legally actionable, such conduct does indicate a contempt for women as objects and receptacles for fluids of a non-alcoholic nature (though Powell‘s may be 100 proof).
So, the question remains: is Adam Powell’s booze laden misogynism really all that much different from the pretentious, crazed violent delusional psychotic favored by the despicable Kevin Powell (who is apparently not a relative, except in spirit)?