Rep. Barney Frank will be remembered for three things: First, he was not only the first openly gay member of Congress but the first involved in a gay-prostitution scandal. Second, he said, “I do not want the same kind of focus on safety and soundness” regarding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as exercised with regard to other government-affiliated agencies, preferring, as he memorably put it, to “roll the dice a little bit.” Third, he was co-author of the Frank-Dodd financial-reform legislation. Which is to say, Representative Frank will be remembered as an embarrassment, a reckless gambler, and a legislative malefactor.
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Representative Frank was not much of a crusader on gay-rights issues, which was just as well. On the substance of those issues, he was on the wrong side. As a symbol, he was toxic — a powerful politician whose homosexual orientation was hardly the most remarkable feature of his private life, which included involvement with a gay hustler and convicted drug dealer whom the congressman was paying for sex, and who ended up running a prostitution operation out of the congressman’s home. Representative Frank was reprimanded by the House for making misleading statements to a Virginia prosecutor on behalf of the prostitute — whom the congressman eventually put on his own payroll — and for having fixed dozens of parking tickets on his behalf. Americans are broadly tolerant of homosexuality; they are rightly less tolerant of prostitution and political corruption. The congressman’s self-pitying account of the episode made the bad situation worse.
But though his private life spilled over into his public duties, it is as a champion of a different kind of pay-for-play operation, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that the congressman did the most damage to the country. The government-backed mortgage giants were at the center of the housing bubble and the subsequent financial crisis. Representative Frank was a stalwart defender of the organizations, even after the government uncovered “extensive” fraud at Fannie Mae and found that Freddie Mac had illegally channeled funds to its political benefactors. Again, Representative Frank’s personal life intruded into the story: He was sexually involved with a Fannie Mae executive during a time when he was voting on laws affecting the organization. The final cost of the Fannie/Freddie bailouts will run into the hundreds of billions of dollars, and the real damage that the organizations did to the U.S. economy — and the world economy, for that matter — probably is incalculable.
In response to a financial crisis in which he was a significant figure, Representative Frank helped to craft a financial-reform law that bears his name. The drafting of Dodd-Frank began as a punitive measure, evolved into a dispensary of political favors, and in the end did little or nothing to address the problems that led to the 2008–09 crisis or to prevent similar crises in the future. Which means that we may have Barney Frank partly to thank not only for the last financial crisis but for the next one.
From his relatively petty transgressions related to his personal life to his more consequential role in enabling Fannie and Freddie, Representative Frank personifies a great deal of what is wrong with American public life. Though a highly intelligent man, he made the wrong decisions at every turn, and compounded his policy errors with the petty and vindictive style of his politics. Republicans will not miss him. Neither should his Democratic colleagues, his constituents, or the American public that will be paying off the cost of his errors and those of his allies, with interest, for a great many years. We hope that he will find in the obscurity of retirement the grace and wisdom that eluded him as an elected official, but we do not assume that it will be so.
Thank you, Editors, for saying what needed to be said about this "petty and vindictive", miserable excuse for a human being.
His face alone, permanently disfigured by an ungrateful, ungracious, expression--the embodiment of spiritual ugliness--Barney Frank's face is a damning testament.
Barney Frank and the way in which he abused the trust placed in him by the American people is one of the reasons Congress is less popular than communism. He didn't care what we thought of him or how he conducted himself; he only cared that he was reelected. So he passed out money and favors and secured his place on Capitol Hill from which he took far more than he contributed.
Indeed, and one of his comments during the presser was now that he wasn't running again, he didn't have to be nice to people he didn't like! As if he ever was!
What a refreshing takedown of the most vile member of Congress, a blind slave to concupiscence. Strong as your condemnation is, it still doesn't come near to describing the damage that Frank has done and will continue to do until Dodd-Frank is repealed. We have a lot of work to undo in 2012.
Thank you for this helpful summary of the career of one of the most arrogant, dangerous, unpleasant figures in Congress. He can't leave quickly enough to please me.
I couldn't agree more with Jenna in the above post. Americans should be ashamed of some of the trash that represents them in Congress and Barney Frank was a typical example of trash; a man without a shred of integrity and a truck load of rudeness. It was shocking how long he managed to last as a member.
"Representative Frank personifies a great deal of what is wrong with American public life." The only exception I would take to this article is that Frank personifies EVERYTHING that is wrong with American public life. I cannot think of one redeeming quality to his time in office.
The scariest thing about this total disgrace of a congressman is not him, it's the constituency that re-elected him as many times as it did. It's truly scary.
"Americans are broadly tolerant of homosexuality . . . ." During, say, Barney Frank's first five terms in Congress?
"He was sexually involved with a Fannie Mae executive during a time when he was voting on laws affecting the organization." Clinton was involved -- even sexually, perhaps -- with a passionate advocate of health care reform named Hillary while he was president. The idea that Barney Frank went easy on Fannie and Freddie as a quid pro quo for his lover's job is ludicrous. He went easy on Fannie and Freddie for legitimate, though ultimately wrongheaded, reasons. And any of you would even consider supporting Gingrich? Oh, the hypocrisy.
The use of "at the center" as opposed to "primarily responsible" is a clever dodge by NRO. Proximity and cause are not the same. Fannie and Freddie were not the primary cause of the financial crisis. For the umpteenth time, read the report. Only one of the ten commission members (six Democrats, four Republicans) laid the blame squarely at the feet of Fannie and Freddie -- Peter Wallison of AEI. Talk about a guy with an axe to grind. Remember what happened to David Frum at AEI.
Are you seriously trying to say that Clinton supposedly being lobbied by his own wife, who had no influence over any organization, is somehow comparable to Frank sleeping with an executive that DID have influence over Fannie Mae? Besides being patently ridiculous on logical grounds, Bill Clinton himself was a "passionate advocate of health care reform" irregardless of Hillary's supposed influence.
If you ignore the facts that Hillary was selected for the role by Bill as a representative of the administration which makes 'conflict of interest' a moot point, it's a great analogy, Socrates.
