From Tuesday night’s Fox News All-Stars.

On Charlie Rangel’s long speech in defense of himself on the House floor:

It was rambling and disjointed, but also poignant. He looked a little bit lost.
But I think there was actually one very clear point he tried to make … He’s willing to concede, and he did on the floor, that he had made misjudgments, he’d made errors, he’d been sloppy, negligent. He pushed the rules a bit, he overdid the perks. I think he confessed, admitted all of that, he essentially apologized.
But what he refused to do was to admit any corruption, that he sold his office. It has to do with this center he was setting up, and the way he solicited funds. He said: Look, I grabbed stationery, it had the wrong stationery head [for soliciting for an educational institution] — that’s not a hanging offense.
That is why what is so hard to understand — why wouldn’t you accept a reprimand, avoid a trial, stay in your seat and have it over with? He refuses to accept it because he’ll admit to anything, but he won’t admit to the charges that imply that he sold his office. And that’s where he makes his stand.
And I commend him on his integrity — or at least his belief that he didn’t transgress in that case and that he should defend himself.

On Robert Gibbs’s criticism of the “professional left”:

The irony is that he [President Obama] was a member of the professional left until he became commander-in-chief. As a professor, as a senator, as a candidate he railed against Guantanamo …
He is president now and he knows that Guantanamo is exactly what we needed. It fits all of our requirements. It’s already established. It’s humane. It works. We are now having the trials.
I think there is not a chance it will close.