A Conversation with Charlie Rangel

Brian Zick

SusanG at dailykos has posted an interview with New York Congressman Charlie Rangel. He responds to questions about several issues; the war, Bush's veto threat, Katrina, the presidential candidates. And his new book And I Haven’t Had a Bad Day Since. Let me tell you something that’s really funny. I had a whole lot of stuff there about who I was when I was a kid and the trouble I got into. So I lured my son, the lawyer … he read the stuff and helped me put it together in terms of what should be first and how you jump all around and get back to the story. And he was pretty good at that. But he said, "Dad, Mom doesn’t know that you’ve done all these things." I said, "Of course not." He said, "Do you think this is the right time?" I said, "Why not? I’m 76." He said, "I’ve got a great idea. Let me excise. Let me take out all of the stuff that shouldn’t be in the book. You put all of that together. Write a novel and say it was somebody else." And so I did just that.

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