Compare what Barney Frank said above to this: The blatant lies of Democrat Barney "Bubbles" Frank
David Brooks even gets it:
This is how Washington works. Only two of the characters in this tale come off as egregiously immoral. Johnson made $100 million while supposedly helping the poor. Representative Barney Frank, whose partner at the time worked for Fannie, was arrogantly dismissive when anybody raised doubts about the stability of the whole arrangement.There are obviously other persons, from both parties, who are also responsible for what occurred. But Barney Frank was a central player in what happened.
Different kinds of bubbles:
Barney less formal. Via Gawker. Tiny bubbles! Well Barney's are not so tiny.
Wow! You just sold me on Portlandia.
ReplyDeleteBut Barney Frank was a central player in what happened.
ReplyDeleteBut not to have heard Barney himself tell it.
The housing bubble is one of the many peripheral reasons Frank decided to retire. But the proximate cause that pushed him out a term ahead of when he says he was planning to go was the redistricting of Massachusetts, which is losing a seat in 2012. It is very unclear with the new boundaries, whether Baaney could get elected. It's even unclear whether he could have gotten elected in his old district.
Frank's handling and subsequent dissembling over housing were just more of the same pattern that has caused his support to melt away. Even to die-hard Democrats he has become an embarrassment: arrogant, peevish, self-justifying, with an odor of hidden corruption.
My boss, for example, is a lifelong Democrat, related to a former very high official of the DNC, and an ardent supporter of Bill Clinton. Even he has been complaining about Barney Frank in terms that would not be out of place on Althouse, Instapundit, Trooper, or even Ace of Spades. It is very odd to hear phrases worthy of Rush Limbaugh coming out of the mouth of a Jewish New Yorker with degrees from Princeton and the Harvard Business School, and who lives in the heart of Frank's old district.
If Barney has lost people like this, he literally has no constituency left, save perhaps a few fishermen in New Bedford. My boss also, to his credit, has very David Brooks-like opinions about the rest of the Fannie and Freddie scandal, not to mention crony capitalism in general.
From what I see from my perch in Cambridge and the edge of liberal Boston, a lot of people who may not be central to the "leadership class," but who are definitely fellow-travellers, these people are getting more and more fed up with incestuous, dysfunctional cronyism, operating under a veneer of liberal, Establishment respectability.
I've heard what Brooks says not only from my boss, but from many, many others. It gives me hope that the correctives, when and if applied, need not be as pungent or colorful as some might wish. I'm afraid the things that are impoverishing this country are slowly becoming obvious to just about everybody.
And while Cambridge or Concord snobs may cluck their tongues at the guns and religion of the yahoos out there, reality, when it bites hard enough, does have a way of getting pretty much everyone's attention.
Well said TTBurnett.
ReplyDelete