Obama Administration

NEW YORK (CBS) ― Already under fire for his tax troubles, New York Congressman Charles Rangel put his foot in his mouth on Friday.

In an interview with CBS station WCBS-TV Rep. Rangel called Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin "disabled."

WCBS-TV asked Rangel why Democrats are so afraid of Palin and her popularity.

"You got to be kind to the disabled," Rangel said.

When WCBS-TV asked for clarification, Rangel confirmed his statement.

WCBS-TV: "You got to be kind to the disabled?"

Rangel: "Yes."

WCBS-TV: "She's disabled?"

Rangel: "There is no question about politically. It's a nightmare to think that a person's foreign policy is based on their ability to look at Russia from where they live."

Republicans think Rangel's comments are insulting as well as shocking.

"Charlie Rangel's comments are clearly disgraceful," Rep. Peter King, R-Long Island, said. "This is just another liberal Democrat who can't accept an independent woman running for president."

King, who is co-chair of the McCain-Palin campaign in New York, watched Rangel's comments with WCBS-TV. He was particularly upset because Palin's 4-month-old son, Trig, is disabled. He has Down's syndrome.

"We should be sensitive to her or any woman who has a child or family member who has any afflciiton at all," King said. "And so to use the word disabled in the conetxt of a female candidate for vice president who has a child who is disabled really is wrong. Charlie owes her and the entire disbaled community an apology."

Advocates for the disabled are also upset.

"It makes me feel as if he's trying to put her down, trying to say she's not good for the presidency or the vice presidency," Michael Imperiale, of Disabled In Action Of Metropolitan N.Y., said.

"A disabled president ran this country. He was disabled. His name was Roosevelt." 

A spokesman for the McCain-Palin campaign said that this kind of rhetoric has no place in politics.

Rangel, the dean of the New York congressional delegation, has faced a string of embarrassing revelations - he didn't pay taxes on rental income for a beach house in the Dominican Republic; he used three rent-stabilized apartments in Harlem, including one for a campaign office; he used his congressional stationery to drum up private donations to a college center named after him.

He ended up writing a number of checks to cover taxes due on his 2004, 2005, and 2006 returns, related to the unreported rental income, said his chief of staff, George Dalley.

The federal government tab ended up being $4,803, according to Rangel's accountants, while he wrote checks totaling $6,022 to New York State. The state figure includes a small percentage owed to the New York City authorities.

Penalties and interest were not included in those payments, Dalley said.

"If the IRS chooses to impose them, of course he'll readily pay them," said Dalley.

As he paid the taxman, Rangel also tried to assure constituents he did nothing to shame his office.

"I've never violated the public trust, so I'm not worried," Rangel wrote in a letter, e-mailed by his campaign.

A House ethics committee plans to investigate, and Republicans have called for the 19-term congressman to be removed from his powerful position as chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. After private meetings with House Democratic leaders earlier this week, Rangel was able to keep the post.

"Last July, the Republican Party declared guerrilla war against Democrats and since then has made every effort to smear me and members of my party," Rangel wrote in the letter.

"My record in the Ways and Means Committee and 38 years in Congress is unassailable, so they've pried into my private life and used insinuation and half-truths to write stories that sell papers," Rangel wrote.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)