http://www.newsmax.com/PrintTemplate.aspx?nodeid=540662 Feud Between Obama and Charlie Rangel Growing More Venomous
Sunday, December 8, 2013 12:48 PM
By: Newsmax Wires
President Barack Obama is in the midst of a feud with Rep. Charlie Rangel, who is still fuming that Obama reportedly described him as a “hack” in a best-selling book about the 2012 election.
In truth, reports the New York Post, the two have never liked each other. Rangel has been one of Obama’s strongest Democratic critics. He slammed the president for his stance on Syria, IRS reviews of conservative organizations and the rollout of Obamacare.
“It’s screwed up,” he said, describing the botched execution of the healthcare law.
The problems date back to at least 2008, when Rangel supported Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary.
“There’s a cultural difference. There was always a pecking order of who [Rangel] perceived as being part of the struggle during the civil-rights movement,” Vincent Morgan, a Rangel aide from 2001 to 2004, told the Post.
“The younger people were constantly reminded that they were the beneficiaries. Every conversation with him was a one-sided conversation. It was like, ‘That’s a good idea, but you haven’t been in the game long enough.’ ”
Rangel, who has long been loyal to the Clintons, repeatedly has dismissed Obama throughout his rise to the White House.
“It’s a little more style than it is politics,” another Rangel confidant told the Post anonymously. “There are members of Congress who backed Hillary who Obama now has a decent relationship with. The thing with Charlie — a lot of it is style. There’s nobody more old-school than Charlie. And Obama is not.”
When Rangel faced censure for paying below-market rates on four Harlem apartments and failing to pay taxes on his Dominican Republic cottage, Obama was quite harsh.
“He’s somebody who’s at the end of his career,’’ Obama told CBS News in July 2010. “I’m sure that what he wants is to be able to end his career with dignity, and my hope is that it happens.’’
Their animus blew up again when Obama tried to bar Rangel from a Harlem event in March 2011.
“Remember the $30,000-a-plate fund-raiser Obama had at the Red Rooster a couple of years back,” said one Harlem insider. “Charlie’s people reached out and asked, ‘Where’s Charlie’s complimentary entrée to the event?’ And the answer was, ‘There is no complimentary entrée.’ This is in Harlem — Charlie’s home turf. His office was furious. And what Charlie decided to do was say, ‘I’m coming anyway.’ ”
