Why I Love Barney Frank (Metaphorically)

As this economic mess continues spiraling out of control (the market was only down 777 points yesterday!), and both parties, predictably, point fingers at who is to blame for the failed bailout vote, let me just state for the record that I am a huge fan of Barney Frank, Democratic Representative from the State of Massachusetts. Barney has been a House Rep since 1981, he's openly gay (one of only two in Congress), tough as nails, and sarcastic as hell. No one shouts him down and he doesn't take guff from anyone. As the Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, he's one of the most powerful members of the House and has been deeply involved in trying to get a deal done to bail out the financial industry and keep our 401(k) and bank balances from tumbling off a cliff.

Barney's political career was nearly derailed in 1990, when it was revealed that he had befriended a male escort named Steve Gobie, who claimed to have conducted an escort service from Frank's apartment when he wasn't home. The House Ethics Committee ultimately found no evidence that Frank had known or been involved with the alleged illegal activity, and recommended that Frank only receive a reprimand. Other reps, headed by -- oh, this is just priceless, then-representative, later Idaho Senator LARRY CRAIG -- tried to get him expelled from the House for his misdeeds. The effort failed.

That's all ancient history now. The best part about Barney Frank is his sense of humor, which is cutting indeed. In 1995, then-Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey, a total douche, referred to Frank as "Barney Fag" in an interview. Armey later apologized and said it was "a slip of the tongue". Frank wouldn't take the apology and responded: "I turned to my own expert, my mother, who reports that in 59 years of marriage, no one ever introduced her as Elsie Fag."

Here are some other gems from his Wikipedia page:

On Mitt Romney: "The real Romney is clearly an extraordinarily ambitious man with no perceivable political principle whatsoever. He is the most intellectually dishonest human being in the history of politics."

On the Starr Report re: President Bill Clinton, Barney complained that it was "too much reading about heterosexual sex". Who says shit like this?

Now, at this time of high anxiety, Frank is at the center of the financial shitstorm and back on television defending his party from the Republicans' absurd effort to blame the Democrats for the bailout bill's failure yesterday. 140 Democrats and 65 Republicans voted in favor of the bill. 95 Democrats and 133 Republicans voted against it. The backstory is that 12 of the 133 Nay Republicans were set to vote in favor of the bill, which would have led to its passage, until that Demonatrix House Speaker Nancy Pelosi came out and gave a stupidly partisan speech right before the vote, which blamed Bush and his deregulation policies for the financial system's catastrophic failure. For Pelosi to give a partisan speech like that, at that important moment for the country, was idiotic. You'll hear no argument from me on that -- I actually don't think she's a very good leader (and neither is Harry Reid while we're at it). I'd rather see someone like Rahm Emmanuel up there. But for the Republicans to say that her "hurtful" words caused 12 Republicans to change their vote from Yea to Nay is beyond ridiculous. I smell a rat.

And so did Barney:



That's what I'm talking about. And people wonder why nothing gets done in this country.