WASHINGTON - When barney frank announced the other day that he
was shuffling off stage after three decades in the congressional
limelight, I was brought back to 1980 when some very thoughtful
friends from Harvard told me to watch him. Paul H. Weaver had been
an aide to Irving Kristol, the Godfather of Neoconservatism, which
was lustrous in those days and rightly so. Paul was one of the
brightest young Neocons of his generation. I always took him
seriously. He thought that Congressman Frank was principled,
stupendously intelligent, and of good cheer—a wit. It seemed Frank
was going to be another Daniel Patrick Moynihan or at least an
Allard Lowenstein, the former congressman and principled Liberal
activist who had recently been murdered.
Boy, were Paul and the others up there at Harvard wrong. I
followed Frank’s trajectory for years, and it always proceeded
downward. If he was principled it was the principle of sticking
with your team, however far to the left it might go. If he was
intelligent it was the intelligence of the banal. There was never
anything fresh or surprising about him. He followed the Liberal
herd and if he was clever it was in implementing the herd’s
desiderata. As for wit, all I noticed was a clownish demeanor,
somewhat reminiscent of W. C. Fields, though without the booze. A
specimen of it was presented on National Public Radio for us to
savor the other day. Frank in responding to a contrary constituent
said, “Trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying
to argue with a dining room table.” Oscar Wilde he was not.
In an interview with the New York Times after announcing his
forthcoming retirement he spoke of how a “competition of people of
goodwill with different points of view on public policy” had
vanished from Congress. He never blamed Liberals for this, only
Newt Gingrich, the Republicans who had to “demonize the Democrats”
to take over Congress, and “the conservative news media.” And, oh
yes, he also blamed “moderates” who were too moderate to object to
the Republicans’ evil designs.
Actually, we conservatives have not changed our views much since
Barney Frank entered Congress. There are, however, two things that
have changed. The first is that we conservatives have a voice in
the public debate and it is a growing voice. Added to the
conservative writers and magazines we now have talk radio
(democratic talk radio) and Fox News. The second is that Frank and
his party have become markedly more Liberal. In their immoderation
they display an element of extreme politics that is always present
in extremist movements and is now sinking Liberalism. The Liberals
always take Liberalism too far.
Barney Frank was the first self-proclaimed homosexual in
Congress and as a spokesman for gay rights he was ardent. Today
homosexuals have their rights, but they want to claim the right to
marry, not to sign civil union papers before the state like those
heterosexuals who want a civil union. They want to claim marriage
in a church. Will churches be allowed to deny them this right, free
from the reach of civil rights law? It is too early to know, but as
I watch the treatment of church-run hospitals refusing abortion and
church-run adoption agencies treating homosexual couples
differently than heterosexual couples, I worry about Liberals again
going too far.
Certainly Liberals went too far in extending subprime mortgages
to those who could not afford them. Through all their travails
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae had a great protector in Frank. Frank
was a typical Liberal advocate of subprime loans for the penurious.
As late as July 2008 he told CNBC that “I think this is a case
where Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound, that they are not
in danger of going under. They’re not the best investments these
days from the long-term standpoint going back. I think they are in
good shape going forward.” Oops, and in 2009 he took over the
Financial Services Committee to work his wizardry on the whole
financial industry. The result was Dodd-Frank, which took the crony
capitalism of Fannie and Freddie to a whole new level.
Barney Frank has cost the taxpaying American people a bundle,
and now that the bills are coming do he is retiring. My guess is he
will be richly rewarded on the lecture circuit where he will
lecture Liberals on how swell they had it, while others clean up
his mess. No, he never made it as a Moynihan or a Lowenstein.
