Rangel-ing More Pork

Who cares that the Pentagon doesn't find this project necessary? It's good old Charlie Rangel stuffing yet another pork project down the throats of the taxpayers. Naturally, he does it in sneaky, back-door fashion.

Two years after creating a center in his own name at City College, Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel has come through with a $3 million defense grant for the school -- for a project the Pentagon doesn't even want, The Post has learned.

The $3 million cash infusion is going to an existing academic department, rather than to the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at CCNY, a $30 million project that will immortalize Rangel's name and house his papers when he retires. Rangel had previously arranged $2 million in taxpayer funds for the center.

The latest piece of congressional pork is to fund research into new composite materials that could be used to protect Army trucks from attack. The grant is tucked into the massive Defense Appropriations Bill moving through Congress.

Word of the funding comes as the House is set to vote today on a Republican-backed resolution to strip Rangel of his Ways and Means Committee chair pending an ethics investigation, after revelations that he didn't disclose income on multiple properties, as well as failure to pay taxes and other issues.

The Pentagon doesn't want the research money, but Rangel got the funding anyway by getting the Appropriations Committee to direct the cash to CCNY.

Rangel sought the earmark in a single-paragraph memo disclosed by the Defense Appropriations subcommittee, seeking funds to "create a high-performance multi-threat vehicle armor" to protect against explosives.

"Developing lighter-weight armor for military vehicles will ultimately save lives and lessen horrific injuries to troops caused by road-side bombs," Rangel said in a statement. "I couldn't be more proud of CCNY's involvement in this partnership with DoD and the private sector. . . . This has nothing to do with the Rangel Center."

A more detailed description of the earmark request provided to The Post states that Novus Technologies Corp. will collaborate on the project, although the company is not mentioned in the official committee request.

The Long Island-based company hired a Washington lobbyist in 2008, paying him $60,000 since then to push Congress for the project, disclosure forms reveal.

Naturally if you oppose this you'll be accused of not caring about the military. Good luck selling that, however, considering how Democrats are busy undermining General Stanley McChrystal.

ANOTHER day, another double standard from the Obama White House. This one involves the nasty effort to discredit and muzzle Gen. Stanley McChrystal, whose sin was to present his commander in chief with an inconvenient answer about Afghanistan.

The president appointed McChrystal and ordered him to assess the war and develop a plan to rescue the mission. The result -- a call for an increase of 40,000 troops or face defeat -- apparently was not what Obama wanted to hear.

Bingo. In a flash, McChrystal found himself on the business end of a political attack machine. The president's liberal allies struck first, and then White House officials, hiding behind anonymous quotes, heaped scorn on the commander's judgment in The Washington Post.

Their loyalty isn't to the troops. It's to Barack Obama, of course.

Democrats in Congress, their war powers be damned, are content to sit on the sidelines until Obama makes up his mind. With Sen. John McCain and other Republicans pushing for military testimony, the Senate voted on a strict party line, 59-40, against the measure and put off any testimony for 45 days.

Party first, America second. They support neither the troops or their mission.