REP. Charles Rangel has scored plenty of headlines in his 35 years in Congress, but lately, he's outdone himself by comparing President Bush to the revolting Southern racist "Bull" Connor, who sicced attack dogs on black protesters in 1963.

"George Bush is our 'Bull' Connor," claimed the Harlem Democrat — New York's most senior member of Congress — as he charged that the Hurricane Katrina response was slow because many victims were black.

But that's not all.

Rangel raised eyebrows by saying the Iraq war to topple Saddam Hussein was as bad as the Holocaust — "This is just as bad as the 6 million Jews being killed" by the Nazis, he said in June.

In July, Rangel got into a flap after the official Congressional Record ran a statement under his name blaming a fictitious 1712 slave-owner, "Willie Lynch," for tactics that destroyed the black family. Rangel denied saying it.

Then the Washington Times found the Congressional Record with the Rangel "Lynch" statement — based on Internet fake documents.

Rangel aide Emil Milne said an intern wrote it and it somehow got into the Record without Rangel knowing.

Last month, Rangel turned medical expert and told New York 1 that Vice President Dick Cheney is too sick to do his job: "He's got heart disease, but the disease is not restricted to that part of his body. He grunts a lot, so you never really know what he's thinking."

What's up?

Rangel didn't return calls. But aides say he's just being himself. They note that in February, he called fellow Democrat Bill Clinton a "redneck." (He insisted that was a compliment, and it's hardly a "Bull" Connor-type insult.)

Republicans claim Ran- gel, 75, sounds irascible and frustrated because he's been waiting 11 years and now knows he'll never chair the powerful tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, since Democrats are unlikely to regain a House majority any time soon.

"Most of us are not too upset with the fact that Charlie has chosen this approach, because it exemplifies that case that we've been making that Democrats are devoid of ideas and non-constructive and hateful," said a New York Republican in Congress.

No top Dems have yet dared to distance themselves from Rangel, and both Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chuck Schumer ducked giving an opinion on his "Bull" Connor remark. -  Deborah Orin "RANGEL ALL TANGLED IN RACE RAGE"