Dowars and Sense
Be afraid. Be very afraid:
As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank is busy assembling a complex bill to give the federal government unprecedented control over the country’s financial institutions. It is as ambitious as any legislation jolting town halls and cable-news programs…When Congress returns to session after Labor Day, Frank expects to chair a series of hearings and markup sessions that he hopes will generate a single comprehensive bill on financial reform for a vote in the House…
…Frank says the legislation is necessary to help fend off future episodes of financial panic. Hedge funds and derivatives traders would have to operate under new limits. A financial products safety commission would regulate the consumer marketplace, down to payday loans and check-cashing stores. Federal officials would gain new powers to unwind failed financial institutions.
Arrogance: check.
Socialist: check.
Funny looking and sounding: check and check.
He’s so infuriating, it’s hard to credit Barney Frank with the ample intelligence he wields. But he’s a true believer and a dead-ender. When the Tea Party activists corner him in the barn, like a latter-day John Wilkes Boof, he’ll shout: “You’ll nevew take me awive, you wats! Eat wead!!”
PS: It would be worse:
Frank, a lawyer, could be next in line for the Judiciary Committee gavel, but says recent events have made that ambition moot. He said he has shrunk his political portfolio to only two nonfinance subjects: fisheries issues (due to his coastal district’s economy) and gay concerns (“because there aren’t enough of us to go around’’).
“Go around?” Is that some sexual euphemism?