Speaking yesterday at a rally in honor of slain cop Omar Edwards -- gunned down by a fellow cop in a case of mistaken identity -- the embattled congressman outrageously quipped that President Obama, in town for a date with First Lady Michelle, should watch his back walking around the Big Apple because he is black.

"Make certain he doesn't run around East Harlem unidentified," the controversial lawmaker snarked. "If [he] did not have the Secret Service . . . around him, [city cops] wouldn't know if he was president of the United States."

The remark brought raucous cheers and laughter from the crowd of around 100.

Police union officials were quick to blast Rangel's remarks.

"If Congressman Rangel said . . . 'and waving a gun' he might be correct," the union official said. But Rangel wasn't the only official riffing on the fact that Edwards, who is black, was shot by a white officer. "First we couldn't 'drive while black,' now we can't 'police while black,' " said Brooklyn City Councilman Charles Barron.

Mayor Bloomberg, who stopped by the Edwards' Brownsville home to pay his respects to the family, said a federal investigation into the shooting wasn't necessary despite calls from activists. But Gov. Paterson, however, left open the door to outside involvement.

"I think that the NYPD and the Manhattan DA are perfectly capable of conducting the investigation, but I think in these types of situations, what is most important is that everybody is satisfied," he said.

Meanwhile, Edwards' widow bravely fought back tears yesterday as a parade of officers carried her husband's personal items from his car into her Brooklyn home, including his prized football.

"When his wife saw it, she started crying. There was a football. That was his passion -- football," said Eugenio Edwards, an uncle of the officer tragically gunned down by a fellow member of the Finest in East Harlem on Thursday night.

Danielle Edwards, 22, had just endured a sleepless night and was feeling a little more composed until Omar's grim-faced colleagues showed up.

They had cleaned out Edwards' Nissan -- which a petty thug had burglarized, setting off the grim chain of events -- and wanted her to have his possessions.

Most sentimental was the football. Edwards, a father of two, had been a player since high school and was a defensive back on the NYPD team, which is set to face off against the FDNY team today. His son, Xavier, 18 months, already seems to understand something is amiss. "I'm worried about him. His father would come home from work, hold him and play with him," Eugenio said.

STATEMENT FROM SECRETARY GEITHNER PRAISING SENATE PASSAGE OF CREDIT CARDHOLDERS’ BILL OF RIGHTS

Gates was in the crowd for Obama's national security speech. Pointing him out, the president said "William Gates" was on hand. Perhaps Obama was thinking of Bill Gates, the Microsoft billionaire.

The defense chief, who goes by Bob, was also misidentified at a Pentagon ceremony on Tuesday. Then, he was introduced as Ronald Gates.

Geithner also said the Obama administration is considering an independent agency that would set and enforce financial services regulations to protect consumers.

Geithner said the administration is studying the structure and how much authority such an agency would have. His comments Thursday were the most specific acknowledgment yet that such an entity could be part of the Obama administration's broader effort to overhaul financial sector regulations.

The head of the Securities and Exchange Commission has objected to a watchdog that would chip away at the SEC's powers.

Geithner told House members that the administration is looking at how a consumer protection agency would relate to "authorities that exist across agencies now."

Three Democratic sponsors of House legislation creating an independent commission on financial products wrote Geithner a letter Thursday urging him to include such an agency in his regulatory overhaul plan.

 

Sen. Chris Dodd is calling for hearings and prosecutions of Bush administration officials responsible for waterboarding — comparing such cases to those of Nazis at Nuremberg.

"If people, in fact, did something, that ought to be pursued," he told a questioner at a gathering in Connecticut, referring to prosecutions. "My father was a prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials — they were not a popular idea."

 

 

Mr. President, when you took office, you promised to reform our tax code so that it would be more simple and more fair for hard-working Americans. And you promised to ensure that our tax dollars would be used to strengthen the American economy, and American competitiveness. Today, we are taking another important step towards those goals by ending indefensible tax-breaks and loopholes which allow some companies and some well-off citizens to evade the rules that the rest of America lives by.

We believe in a level playing field. Unfortunately, we have a tax code which gives businesses that invest and create jobs overseas a competitive advantage over those who invest and create jobs at home. In a global economy, we need American companies to compete in overseas markets. But we will no longer provide tax incentives that disadvantage American innovation and American workers.

Today, the President will announce a series of measures to reform deferral rules that encourage overseas investment, to eliminate loopholes that allow companies to legally avoid paying billions of dollars in U.S. taxes, and to crack down on the abuse of tax havens by individuals. These are critical steps in reforming our tax laws, and improving enforcement. And along side these measures, the Internal Revenue Service, under the strong and able leadership of Commissioner Doug Schulman, are making an unprecedented effort to upgrade and strengthen enforcement capacity. The President's budget will add up to 800 full-time IRS employees devoted to detecting and bringing to justice those who unlawfully hide assets and income.

A few days after the election -- the election that President Bush described as a “thumping” for Republicans -- I met with the President at the White House. In spite of his word after the 2004 election that he wanted to work with the Congress, he had done no such thing. It is a myth that Bush has ever possessed the skills required for working in a bipartisan manner. In Washington, he’s never had to, because the Republican Congress had always been a ready rubber stamp. And so now in defeat, the President was in the unfamiliar position of straining for comity. Unpracticed at humility, Bush’s appeal was not very convincing. “You’re from the West. I’m from the West,” he said to me. “We’re both just two dudes from the West.”

I hoped his overture was genuine this time. I would have stopped at nothing to meet him in the middle if he had followed through. But I’d seen this before and was dubious that he was sincere. And in any case, our life experiences as “two dudes from the West” could not have been more different. I never went to Kennebunkport as a kid. I never went anyplace. And I’ve got no blue blood in my veins -- just some desert sand. So as he and I sat there in the Oval Office, I said little in return. I hadn’t done well for Nevada in the House and Senate for more than two decades by being false, and I wasn’t going to start now. Even if it meant a somewhat awkward moment with the President of the United States.

The paperback version of Reid's book, "The Good Fight," is coming out May 5 with an epilogue called "The Obama Era." Reid said he was impressed when Obama, then a freshman senator from Illinois, delivered a speech about President George W. Bush's war policy.

Reid, D-Nev., writes: "'That speech was phenomenal, Barack,' I told him. And I will never forget his response. Without the barest hint of braggadocio or conceit, and with what I would describe as deep humility, he said quietly: 'I have a gift, Harry.'"

A copy of the book's 15-page epilogue was provided to The Associated Press. Reid said in an interview he hesitated about citing Obama's comment because he knew it could be interpreted as bragging.

"To be honest, my wife, she said, 'don't tell people that,'" Reid recalled. "She's afraid it could be taken the wrong way. But she's heard me tell lots of people that, and everytime she goes 'don't do that.' Now it's there for thousands of people to read."

Reid said in the book that he talked to Obama in 2006 about running for president, and that Obama expressed doubts about his ability to win. "I was resolved to stay neutral in the coming campaign, but I told him that in my view the stars could align for him. 'If you want to be president, you can be president now,' I said. 'I don't know, Harry,' he said. 'I don't think so.'"

Reid also explained why, after the presidential election, he decided against removing Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., as chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Lieberman had campaigned for the Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain.

"This decision had not so much to do with forgiveness as it did with simple math," Reid wrote. "Years of counting votes in the Senate had taught me that you never take a vote for granted."

He said Monday that many groups are still mad at him for that decision. "But they don't have to count the votes," Reid said. "I do."

Obama got graded out a little lower than his dog for his performance during the first 100 days by Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC's "Hardball."

"The first family has got an A+, as a family. Well, I give the dog an A. I'd give [the president] an A-, because I'm still worried about some of these numbers," Matthews said in response to "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno.

 

"You know, the fact that we're going to borrow $13 trillion. I mean, by the time he leaves office, the national debt will be the same as the total American economy today. That's a little scary," he said.

But, Matthews added, "we're a popular country again. Ahmadinejad is afraid of us, a little bit, now...we've got the most popular world leader in the world. That's a big change.