If U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., had any shame about him, he would have resigned from the House of Representatives by now and headed back to the Big Apple to quietly await the criminal indictment that may well be headed his way.

But shame is in short supply in the United States Congress, and the best Rangel could do was “temporarily” step down from his post as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee while the House Ethics Committee — there’s an oxymoron for you — debates his fate as a congressman.

Even as we are writing this, a deal seems to have been struck. News reports on Friday indicated that the Ethics Committee had struck a deal with Rangel — a congressional equivalent of a plea agreement — in which he will receive a “reprimand” from the House. That way, if he escapes a criminal indictment, he will remain a member of Congress in good standing, whatever that means these days.

Rangel has been charged by his House peers with 13 counts of ethics violations, some of which may also be criminal in nature. He has already admitted to not paying taxes on rental property he owns, and has ponied up the back taxes. He has received gifts in the form of discounted rent from landlords who might want to seek favors from a senior congressman like Rangel. And he has used congressional stationary to solicit funds for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at New York’s City College.

Rangel’s bill of particulars is just the latest in a string of congressional self-dealing that stretches back to the founding of the republic. Congressional boodling is a bipartisan tradition; Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif., pleaded guilty in 2005 to accepting at least $2 million in bribes from a defense contractor, and was sentenced to approximately eight years in the slammer. The certifiably crazy James Traficant, D-Krypton, served seven years after being convicted of bribery and tax fraud. (Traficant, who represented an Ohio congressional district, used to end his speeches on the House floor by shouting, “Beam me up!” He’s free now (and has appeared at a couple of tea party rallies). Bob Ney, another Ohio Republican, got caught up in the Jack Abramoff scandal and spent 17 months in prison. He’s now a radio talk show host. Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., stashed $90,000 in graft money in his freezer.

And these are just the venal crooks; we are not going to get into the moral degenerates such as U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., who frequented prostitutes while instructing the rest of us on family values.

A lot of these crooks and mountebanks started out with spotless records and the best of intentions. Both Rangel and Cunningham were legitimate war heroes — Rangel in Korea and Cunningham in Vietnam. But something corrupted them — the illusion of invisibility, maybe, or the sight of everybody else getting a seat on the gravy train.

Some were better at it than others. Rangel seems to have been a pretty cheap crook; he didn’t make much money from his scams. Cunningham raked in at least $2 million. Maybe Republicans are just more comfortable with stealing big.

Rangel will doubtless make some show of contrition as his case plods through the House of Representatives — it still has to be voted on by the entire body — but we can bet it will be of the “I’m sorry I put my colleagues through this” variety, with never an admission of guilt.

That’s why the convictions of Ney, Traficant and Cunningham were so satisfying: They chirped their innocence constantly until the criminal justice system proved them guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, either by a jury trial or by a preponderance of the evidence so great as to prompt a guilty plea. Then they shut up and went to jail.

Charlie Rangel isn’t saying anything about that possibility right now, but you can bet he’s thinking about it.