Barney Frank has to be the biggest sourpuss in Congress. The liberal representative from Massachusetts has made an art form out of ripping out his ear piece and abruptly ending an interview. This testy feller could pick a fight in a phone booth.
So Frank would be the last person you'd expect, in commenting on the debt ceiling deal, to break out a classic line from comedian Henny Youngman. Yet that's exactly what Barney did on Morning Joe today, in explaining why he was supporting a bill that contains much he doesn't like.
View video after the jump.
Barney Frank
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., has admitted that he “helped his ex-lover land a lucrative post with Fannie Mae in the early 1990s while the Newton Democrat was on a committee that regulated the lending giant,” the Boston Herald reported on May 26.
Frank dismissed questions about the “potential ethical conflict,” of regulating Fannie Mae while Herb Moses, whom Frank has called his “spouse,” worked there from 1991 through 1998.
The New York Times reporter Gretchen Morgensen was the first to report Frank’s role in helping Moses get the job at Fannie Mae, according to the Herald. The Boston paper also reported that in a May 24, radio interview on WBUR’s “Fresh Air,” Morgensen said Fannie Mae “rolled out the red carpet” for Moses to “curry favor with Frank and other members of the Financial Services Committee."
If you need any more evidence of the blatant animus that a mainstream newspaper like the Boston Globe can have for conservative Republicans, here you go. Compare the following:
- Sean Bielat was the Republican challenger to Rep. Barney Frank in the 4th Congressional District in Massachusetts last November. While spending ten months to run for the seat, he paid himself a salary of $10,000.
- Mac D’Alessandro, a self-identified "progressive Democrat," was a primary challenger in the 9th District. The Globe heartily endorsed D'Alessandro, a "public-interest attorney," "community activist," and political director for the SIEU. Even though his campaign barely lasted five months (he lost the primary), he collected stipends totaling nearly $27,000.

In the Bush years, liberals worried out loud about how our war on terrorism was destroying our reputation among our noble socialist allies in Europe. But in the Obama years, they are showing their old colors. The Huffington Post's Amanda Terkel delighted in Barney Frank's idea that our NATO alliance with Europe is strategically worthless and our spending on it should be slashed:
"These kind of restrictions on domestic spending with unlimited spending for the war -- and you always have to talk about both -- is a great mistake," Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) told The Huffington Post last week. "And the liberal community's got to focus more on Afghanistan, Iraq, NATO. NATO is a great drain on our treasury and serves no strategic purpose."
Lawrence J. Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who has argued that the defense budget can be cut without harming military readiness, said Frank's idea has merit. "Barney Frank has a good point," said Korb. "We ought to rethink the whole idea of NATO."
Chris Matthews called it "the quote of the night," so let's see how our NewsBusters readers respond. Here was Barney Frank, reacting to the assertion by a young Marine that they are a macho bunch whereas gays are "girlie":
"I will confess that I left my purse at home."
Later, MSNBC political analyst Michelle Bernard, in a stunning non sequitur, was incapable of understanding how John McCain could oppose DADT repeal while having some years ago apologized for initially opposing the creation of Martin Luther King Day. Huh? For good measure, Bernard called McCain "the male Palin" and accused the entire state of Arizona of being "anti-immigrant."
View video after the jump.
After a tour of the Boston Medical Center, Kerry blamed Democrat struggles across the nation on the obvious problem - the voters.
The Boston Herald reports that Kerry took his pent-up election anger out on clueless voters (emphasis mine):
"We have an electorate that doesn't always pay that much attention to what's going on so people are influenced by a simple slogan rather than the facts or the truth or what's happening."
Kerry made the remarks following questions about the re-election campaign of Barney Frank. Doubling down on the fact-challenged voter assertion, he stated:
"I think a lot of the anger today ... is not directed at the right people. Barney is prepared, as others are, to explain what we're doing. I think when people hear the facts and they see what we're doing, it frankly makes sense."
Be sure to explain it. Very. Slowly.
Looking down on people isn't exactly a new platform for Kerry...
A new video chronicling how Americans feel and what they should do about it in November is out today. However, this video doesn't come from any large organization but, instead, it comes from a small business owner and conservative activist.
Last Wednesday I wrote about how the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory bill Obama signed into law last month contains a provision exempting the Securities and Exchange Commission from Freedom of Information Act requests. Such an exemption would surely have been grounds for a media outcry during the Bush administration, yet apart from The Wall Street Journal and CNN, only blogs have been following the developments. The latter opted simply to parrot the administration's claims without challenge.
Other media ouetlets, such as National Public Radio and MSNBC, completely ignored the controversy, in stark contrast to their extensive coverage of the Bush administration's attempts to curtail the scope of the Freedom of Information Act. NPR's Don Gonyea said "When conflicts arise over what should or should not be open, the administration does not hesitate to invoke the memory of 9/11. And while it's true that 9/11 changed the security landscape, it's also true that the administration was tightening the control of information much earlier . . ."
As left-wing comedian Kathy Griffin appeared on Thursday’s Joy Behar Show on HLN, she injected "I love it" as host Behar recounted that Griffin "got in some trouble ... over something you said on a recent episode of My Life on the D List." Griffin rationalized that the infamous joke she made about Republican Senator Scott Brown’s daughters being "prostitutes" was based on Senator Brown’s acceptance speech. Griffin: "The genesis of the joke, like, does anybody remember that the night he was elected, he made a joke – he was clearly making a joke – saying, ‘By the way, my daughters are available.’ And then, the Washington press beat up on him saying he was pimping out his daughters."
After later discussing the criticism that Democratic Congressman Barney Frank had also aimed at her over the incident, she declared that "whenever a statement is issued against me, I'm in heaven, I feel my next special is half written for me."
After asserting that "people got their panties in a bunch" over the "prostitutes" joke, leading Behar to add that Congressman Frank had also complained about her jab at Senator Brown’s daughters, Griffin poked fun at Frank in spite of her being an avid liberal and supporter of gay rights who had "admired" the openly gay liberal Congressman. Griffin: "Barney Frank got his panties in a bunch, which takes a lot because, apparently, when he and the boyfriend go to P-Town, there's a lot of panties in a bunch."
She went on to suggest that she was surprised that Congressman Frank was not a fan of hers: "And so I met with Barney Frank – who, of course, I admired – an openly gay Congressman, I'm thinking, ‘Oh, this is fantastic and he sat down with me for My Life on the D List,’ and spent half the interview telling me he'd never seen it, he didn't want to do it, his boyfriend likes me, that's why – I'm like, yeah, I've heard this all a million times before."

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) on Friday sent a letter to vulgarian Kathy Griffin strongly condemning her for calling Sen. Scott Brown's (R-Mass.) daughters prostitutes.
As NewsBusters reported Wednesday, Griffin made this disgusting remark on her Bravo program the previous evening.
Brown himself spoke out against these comments Thursday saying, "People can call me any name they want, but families are off limits...Kathy Griffin and Bravo ought to be ashamed of themselves."
Having also appeared on the program in question, Frank was quick to come to his fellow statesman's defense:
Are the mainstream media playing fast and loose with their coverage of the tea parties and what the tea party activists believe? Andrew Breitbart says they are, and points to accusations of racism.
Breitbart spoke at one of the tea party events held near the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. on April 15. He said his involvement in the movement began when he realized how the media would react to the Tea Party movement and detailed an incident in which Contessa Brewer's MSNBC cropped out the face of a black man in footage of a tea party event to make the movement appear to lack diversity.
"I think that we're going to have a problem if we want to start talking about founding fathers, the founding documents, what the origins of our country because the mainstream media is not going to like what you have to say, and so I volunteered myself," Breitbart said. "And on day one, I had to contend with the fact that you guys were called ‘teabaggers.' And I had to deal with the fact an unfortunately named sister, by the name of Contessa Brewer on MSNBC, before you even spoke, told you what your grievances were to the country and our dissent his patriotic presidency. This person took a photo and cut off the head of a black man, and asked is the tea party nation - are the people who are protesting Barack Obama racist? The person was black."
Jason Mattera of Human Events recently confronted Democratic congressman Barney Frank over all the ethics violations he has been accused of in his time on Capitol Hill:
Jason also confronted John Podesta of the Center for American Progress over his hiring of Van Jones. (video below the fold)
