Charlie Rangel stood, stony-faced, in the well of the House. His feet planted wide, his hands crossed over his fly, the 80-year-old lawmaker awaited the rebuke of his peers. 
 
 On Thursday evening, for the first time in 27 years, the speaker read aloud the resolution of reproach. "By its adoption of House Resolution 1737, the House is resolved that representative Charles Rangel of New York be censured," Nancy Pelosi read, calling on the fallen chairman of the Ways and Means committee to pay the taxes he owes. Rangel, staring back at the speaker, swallowed hard. 
 
 After the ritual of public humiliation, the Harlem Democrat's friends came with outstretched arms to console him, but Rangel brushed them off, instead requesting permission to address the House. 
 
 The disgraced lawmaker, defiant even in his moment of shame, scolded his accusers for treating him worse than "those that in the past have done far more harm to the reputation of this body than I." 
 
 Rangel then went downstairs to offer more defiance at a news conference. "I leave here knowing that everyone knows I'm an honest guy," he proclaimed, accusing his colleagues of a "very, very, very political vote." The freshly censured legislator even offered a suggestion for newspaper headlines: "Rangel found not guilty of corruption and self dealing." 
 
 Sorry, Charlie: That's not going to happen. But if it's any consolation, Rangel should know that however harmed he was by the censure, the entity that was really disgraced was Congress itself. This is because Rangel's two-year battle with the House ethics committee exposed the woeful state of lawmakers' abilities to police their own. 
 
 The rules governing members' behavior were proven to be so lax as to be irrelevant. The vast majority of transgressors are never punished - Rangel was only because he himself asked the ethics committee to investigate some of the allegations against him. 
 
 To be sure, Rangel deserved punishment for his wrongs, which included failing to pay taxes on his Dominican beach home and improperly using his office for charitable fundraising. But in the 30 minutes allotted to him for his defense on the House floor Thursday evening, Rangel and his friends made a compelling case that he was being punished for doing things that lawmakers do routinely. 
 
 "The only examples of anybody sanctioned for tax matters in this House in the history of the United States have been those who didn't pay taxes on bribes they received," argued Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), in Rangel's defense. Several members had a chuckle over their laxity. 
 
 "Far more serious ethical lapses than Mr. Rangel's have not met with censure," seconded Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.). 
 
 And Rep. Peter King (N.Y.), one of the only Republicans to oppose censure for Rangel, implored his colleagues to "step back" and reconsider. "Let us apply the same standard of justice to Charlie Rangel that has been applied to everyone else, and that all of us would want applied to ourselves." 
 
 Which is to say: a very lenient standard. ||||| The House voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to censure Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), who pleaded for leniency but now finds his 40-year career tarnished after his colleagues rebuked him using a rare form of public punishment for ethics violations. 
 
 The vote was 333-79, with 77 Democrats and two Republicans voting against censure, the harshest form of punishment short of expulsion from Congress. 
 
 Text Size - 
 
 + 
 
 reset VIDEO: Rangel censured VIDEO: Rangel reacts POLITICO 44 
 
 Immediately following the vote, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) formally called on the 80-year-old Rangel to stand in the well of the House to be informed that he had indeed been censured by his colleagues for series of 11 ethics violations. 
 
 Rangel obliged, rising from the center-aisle seat in the front row. He stood, feet shoulder-width apart with one hand clasped over the other in front of his waist. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus and New York delegations crowded into the first two rows behind him. 
 
 The ordeal was over in about 45 seconds, bringing a surprisingly anti-climatic end to a long battle that cost Rangel his gavel at the Ways and Means Committee and $2 million in legal fees, and nearly jeopardized his four-decade hold on a Harlem congressional district. 
 
 “By its adoption of House Resolution 1737, the House has resolved that Rep. Charles B. Rangel be censured, that Rep. Charles B. Rangel forwith present himself in the well of the House for the pronouncement of censure, that Rep. Charles B. Rangel be censured by the public reading of this resolution by the speaker, and that Rep. Rangel pay restitution to the appropriate taxing authorities for any unpaid taxes … on income received from his property in the Dominican Repbublic and provide proof of payment to the [House ethics] committee,” Pelosi intoned. 
 
 It marked the first time in 27 years that the House had censured a member and only the 23rd time a lawmaker had been subject to that sanction that in the past 180 years. But for all the pomp and circumstance surrounding the censure ritual, that’s basically the end of the process for Rangel, who will return as a member of Congress in the next session. 
 
 Rangel’s allies had earlier attempted to downgrade the punishment to a reprimand, meaning a resolution condemning him would be read into the Congressional Record, but that motion – offered by Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) – was defeated by a 267-146 margin. 
 
 Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) voted for Butterfield motion, but Pelosi didn’t vote and most of her Democratic allies rejected it. In the end, more than 105 Democrats voted against the Butterfield motion. 
 
 With the reprimand alternative out of the way, the House was cleared for a final vote on the censure resolution. 
 
 Rangel was found guilty by the ethics panel of 11 counts of violating ethics rules, including charges that he improperly solicited millions of dollars from corporate officials and lobbyists for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College of New York, failed to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars of income and assets on financial disclosure forms, maintained a rent-stabilized apartment as a campaign office in a Harlem apartment building and failed to pay income taxes on a villa in the Dominican Republic. 
 
 Rangel asked to and received permission to speak to colleagues after Pelosi finished her brief censure statement, the second time he had addressed them from the floor in the last few hours, and he once again took a defiant tack over the case.
– If his House censure is still stinging, Charlie Rangel would do well to pick up today's Washington Post. Columnists Dana Milbank and David Broder don't exactly make the case he's innocent (not even Rangel does that), but they lend sympathetic voices: Milbank: He belittles the House ethics panel, calling it rank hypocrisy that Rangel got singled out for common behavior. "If it's any consolation, Rangel should know that however harmed he was by the censure, the entity that was really disgraced was Congress itself. This is because Rangel's two-year battle with the House ethics committee exposed the woeful state of lawmakers' abilities to police their own."  Broder: He likens Rangel's case to that of Dan Rostenkowski's in the late '80s. "He and Rosty had the same view of the hometown patronage games that brought them down. They wanted the perks that went with their positions of power. But they used them more often to help others along than for themselves, and they weren't greedy. Often, they were just sloppy about the demands of the new era of politics."