As I pondered Barney Frank’s accusation that John McCain was appealing to anti-gay prejudice when he brought up the Masachusetts Democrat’s recent proposals to raise taxes and slash defense spending, I was struck at how quick he was to smear Republicans.

Instead of taking issue with McCain’s arguments, perhaps defending the merits of his proposed tax increases or showing how a drastic cut in national defense wouldn’t impact national security, he immediately jumped to the conclusion that a Republican would only bring him up to play into anti-gay sentiments.

Does he believe his statements are not worthy of criticism?  Is he incapable of recognizing that conservatives might object to his ideas?  Why does he assume that a Republican who criticizes him does so because of prejudice?

I mean, he equates McCain’s criticism of him with “past Republican efforts to raise voter concerns about the prospect of congressmen Charles Rangel and John Conyers, who are black, becoming committee chairs.“  Um, Barney, both men come from the extreme left of your party, with the latter having “a mock impeachment inquiry over the Iraq war” (before he chaired the House Judiciary Committee) with a host of left-wing conspiracy theorists.

It seems Barney harbors similar conspiracy theories about Republicans, given the assumptions he makes about us.  Call it his partisan prejudice.  It’s a sad day for America when a politician so prominent and so smart harbors such prejudices about the opposing party.  He ignores our ideas and assumes our animus.

Let’s see Barney Frank refuses to take any responsibility for the mortgage mess.  He accuses Republicans of racism when they fault government programs for causing the crisis.

Now, he’s getting all bent out of shape because John McCain, on the campaign trail, is making an issue of the Massachusetts Democrat’s proposals to raise taxes, increase domestic spending and gut the defense budget.  Ol’ Barney says it’s because he’s gay, calling McCain’s attack on his actual statements, “an appeal to prejudice.”

Sorry, Barney it’s not because you’re gay, it’s because you’re a liberal who’s been clearer than any of your colleagues on what would happen should the Democrats win the White House and increase their congressional majorities next week.

I thought that Barney was really smart. Yet, he doesn’t seem to understand where Republicans have been coming from since his first election to Congress in 1980.  All he can do is accuse us of the most nefarious of motives.  Doesn’t sound like a very smart man to me, sounds like a very narrow and intolerant one.

As Allahpundit puts it, Barney “never met a bad-faith accusation he didn’t like.“

Grow up, Barney, quit your belly-aching, admit your mistakes, resign from the chairmanship of the House Financial Services Committee and become a role model of responsiblity for gay people.  Because right now you’re an embarrassment to all of us.

How charming.  In this day and age I cannot believe this type of hate speech is now considered mainstream. (h/t - Campaign Spot at NRO)

As a lifelong Caucasian, I am beginning to think the time has finally come to take the right to vote away from white people, at least until we come to our senses. Seriously, I just don’t think we can be trusted to exercise it responsibly anymore.

I give you Exhibit A: The last eight years.

In 2000, Bush-Cheney stole the election, got us attacked, and then got us into two no-exit wars. Four years later, white people reelected them. Is not the repetition of the same behavior over and over again with the expectation of a different outcome the very definition of insanity? (It is, I looked it up.)

Exhibit B is any given Sarah Palin rally.

Exhibit C would be Ed Rendell and John Murtha, who in separate moments of on-the-record candor they would come to regret, pointing out that there are plenty of people in Pennsylvania who just cannot bring themselves to pull the lever for a black man - no matter what they tell pollsters.

So, understand that I am saying all this for the good of the country and, in fact, for the good of those hard-working white people that Hillary used to pander to.

I know those people, I come from them. They are not some shameful abstract demographic to be brushed under the rug of euphemism by Wolf Blitzer and his ilk.

I have broken kielbasa with those people. I went to school with their children. I have gone to Sunday Mass with a deer-hunter hangover with those people. They are bitter with good reason, and they are armed because they are scared. They mean well, but they are easily spooked.

I fear for what is to become of them after the campaigns leave town for the last time, and Scranton and Allentown and Carlisle go back to being the long dark chicken dance of the national soul they were before the media showed up.

This is as racist and stereotypical of any hate speech I have ever seen.

Could you imagine the riots that would breakout at the New York Times and Hollyweird if a columnist in, say Atlanta, wrote “Black People Shouldn’t Be Allowed To Vote.” ???

Again, this columnist is one of the footsoldiers of the Obama Thugocracy.  He is willing to subjugate his own rights and freedom on behalf of The One.  Last I checked that was called socialism at the least, fascism at the worst.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Or stick it on your car for the next two weeks!

BUY IT NOW!  TELL YOUR FRIENDS!

[RELATED:  Secret Service visits anti-Obama voter over "threat" (h/t - GP Reader Mark M)]

[RELATED:  The coming liberal thugocracy - Michael Barone]

Other Obama supporters have threatened critics with criminal prosecution. In September, St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch and St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce warned citizens that they would bring criminal libel prosecutions against anyone who made statements against Mr. Obama that were “false.” I had been under the impression that the Alien and Sedition Acts had gone out of existence in 1801-’02. Not so, apparently, in metropolitan St. Louis. Similarly, the Obama campaign called for a criminal investigation of the American Issues Project when it ran ads highlighting Mr. Obama’s ties to Mr. Ayers.

These attempts to shut down political speech have become routine for liberals. Congressional Democrats sought to reimpose the “fairness doctrine” on broadcasters, which until it was repealed in the 1980s required equal time for different points of view. The motive was plain: to shut down the one conservative-leaning communications medium, talk radio. Liberal talk-show hosts have mostly failed to draw audiences, and many liberals can’t abide having citizens hear contrary views.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

If John McCain were a communicator of the caliber of Ronald Reagan (or even Bill Clinton or Barack Obama), he might have been better able to make the case why conservative policiess can both help us get out of the current financial mess as they make it easier for the average citizen to realize the American dream.

Joe the Plummer has done a better job articulating how Democratic economic policies make it ever more difficult for us to realize that dream than has the Republican presidential nominee. And in terms which the average voter can more readily understand.

That’s not the only thing he has done. The contempt the Democratic nominee seemed to show for Joe’s concerns (as well as his team’s mockery of this outspoken citizen) reminds us of the contempt he had previously shown for small-town Americans: “they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.“

In short, Joe the Plumber reminds the GOP of the strengths we have in the presidential race, an economic philosophy, particularly on taxes, more in tune with that of the average voter and an opposition candidate out of touch with those voters.

If McCain and Palin can follow Joe’s lead and hammer home that message in the next two weeks, they’ll have a fighting chance in November.  That part is up to them (and their speechwriters).  But, the damage to Obama may already have been done.  About three weeks before people vote, they see yet another reminder of the Democrat’s arrogance and condescension.

Whether that will be enough to overcome Obama’s financial advantage, the media’s base in favor of the Democrat and the electoral dynamics of the year (which s “out” party) is yet to be seen.  As an optimist, I have to believe it will help.

ADDENDUM:  Make sure to check out Michael Barone’s two posts on the topic:  Can Joe the Plumber Turn It Around for John McCain? and Joe the Plumber Gives McCain a Chance to Overtake Obama.

In “their rabid character assassination” as Ed Morrissey puts it, of Joe the Plumber, “a man who did nothing more than ask a question,” Obama supporters and their allies in the media remind us (yet again) of the tactics of all too many on the left.  Instead of challenging their conservative, independent or just plain non-orthodox leftists critics on the plain of ideas, they dredge up whatever they can find in an attempt to destroy our credibility.

They just get upset with anything which upsets their narrative.

They don’t want to investigate Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac because such an investigation might undermine their narrative that deregulation and Wall Street greed prompted the mortgage meltdown.  When conservative suggest that government programs might have precipitated the mess, for example, one leading Democrat accused such heretics to the media narrative of racism.

Similarly, when Joe the Plumber upset the Obama campaign’s middle-class narrative, Joe Biden savaged the citizen because his team “simply can’t tolerate an outspoken citizen successfully painting the Democratic ticket as socialist overlords.“

What is it about those on the left, including some very intelligent and thoughtful people, who get whipped into a frenzy any time anyone takes issue with their ideas?  What accounts for their repeated attempts at character assassination of their critics?

I doubt we’ll find the answer in studying their worldview, but we might it by studying their character and considering their hysteria.  The answer has more to do with their psychology than their adversaries’ politics.

Perhaps, we won’t arrive at understanding their mania, but we do know this one thing:  when someone emerges onto the national stage who challenges the narrative of the left, all too many liberals, along with a number of hangers-on in the MSM, will all but ignore his points and attack his person.

UPDATE:  Media spend more time investigating Joe’s tax problems than Barack Obama’s.  In what kind of nation, do the media investigate critics more than candidates?

UP-UPDATE: Rush Limbaugh: The media  “just can’t stand it because Joe the Plumber caused Obama to screw up. Joe the Plumber caused Obama to actually give it up on what his campaign is really all about.” Read the whole thing!

UP-UP-UPDATE:  Iowahawk:

Joe simply had the temerity to speak truth (or, if you prefer, an uninformed opinion) to power, for which the politico-media axis apparently determined that he must be humiliated, harassed, smashed, destroyed. The viciousness and glee with which they set about the task ought to concern anyone who still cares about citizen participation, and freedom of speech, and all that old crap they taught in Civics class before politics turned into Narrative Deathrace 3000, and Web 2.0 turned into Berlin 1932.0.

(H/t: Glenn.)

I’m not the only one to notice my Congressman’s failure to look into the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the financial meltdown.  Even though the jurisdiction ofHenry Waxman’s Oversight and Government Reform Committee includes the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), at the heart of the current crisis.

In yesterday’s hearings, Waxman and his Democrats “grilled Lehman Brothers executives over CEO pay and ‘deregulation’, but never mentioned the names Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.“  Seems they so want this scandal to fit their narrative of the private sector run amok that they won’t address the role federal regulation and government-sponsored enterprises played.

At least, one representative wants a broader investgation.  Connecticut’s Christopher Shays wants to bring the records of past hearings brought into the record to show how Congress failed to heed warnings of the coming catastrophe — and to address Bush Administration requests “to overhaul GSE regulation in 2003.“

Methinks Waxman and the MSM are ignoring this because of their faith in government institutions and of their distrust of the private sector.  They don’t want to confront evidence which upsets their worldview.  Government regulation, they believe, can’t be responsible for the problem–or even have a share in it because it’s the remedy they seek.

Democrats just don’t want to believe that government might be part of the problem.

Barney Frank makes it official…..

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Instead of admitting his own responsibility in the current financial mess, Barney Frank does what he and Democratic partisans always do when their records are called into question: attack conservatives.  It’s not the same blame he attempted to ladle out when Bill O’Reilly pressed him.  Now the Massachusetts Congressman is accusing conservatives of racism:

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank claims conservatives are trying to partly blame the nation’s economic woes on black people.

“This is an effort I believe to appeal to a kind of anger in people,” Frank, a Newton Democrat who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, today told a Boston foreclosure-prevention forum.

Frank charged that conservatives aim to shift blame for the market meltdown away from Wall Street and toward minority-lending laws like the federal Community Reinvestment Act.

Um, Barney, if you bothered to read the conservative stuff, you’d find they’re looking at more than just the Community Reinvestment Act. It’s not they, but you who are trying to shift the blame.

What is it with liberals? Instead of taking responsibility for their own messes (or, in the case, their own involvement in a mess which had many authors) and blame others.

Unable to acknowledge conservative arguments, Barney Frank has decided that Republicans harbor racist sentiments.  I guess he just borrowed a page from the liberal playbook.

He’d rather level false and absurd charges against conservatives than accept his responsibility. Once again, let me repeat, in the interest of recovering from this financial mess with plunging further into recession, Barney Frank should resign from the House Financial Services Committee.

Ed Morrissey who alerted me to Barney’s latest comment provides a nice summary of the conservative view of the mortgage meltdown which I provide below the jump (H/t JammieWearingFool): (more…)

Until recently, I never thought particularly highly of Bill O’Reilly. I found him boorish, self-important and a bit arrogant. He didn’t seem to allow his guests to express themselves. But, then once, I saw a bit of a conversation he had on the issues raised by the Terry Schiavo case. I was impressed at how well he understood the complexity of the situation.

Later, I saw (and read) portions of his interview with Hillary Clinton, again, tough but fair. It helped elevate my opinion of that Democrat whom I didn’t much care for. And he was aggressive in pursuing Obama for his non-answers in their exchange.

But, not until I saw him confront Barney Frank did I full appreciate the TV host’s style:

Despite being one of the major players on the House Banking Committee, Frank did little in his tenure to push for reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. To be sure, he did get his reform bill through last year, but he’d been blocking reform going back at least to 1992, one year after he moved in with a Fannnie Mae executive.

In the summer of 2003, when “Freddie Mac’s multibillion-dollar accounting scandal” became public, the Massachusetts Democrat said, “I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis.” Later that year, he claimed Fannie and Freddie posed no “threat to the Treasury.”

Yet, when O’Reilly confronted him, Frank attempted to shift the blame to Republicans and the Administration. Barney leaves out how frequently he thwarted the Administration’s numerous pleas for reform. To be sure, given the scope of this crisis, there is much blame to go around. And many Republicans deserve considerable opprobrium.

Their responsibility for this mess pales in comparison to the Massachusetts Democrat.  Indeed, few Congress have as long a record of blocking reforms at Fannie and Freddie as does Barney Frank. (Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd may have a claim on that crown.)

At this time of year, we Jews examine our past, look at our mistakes and seek to correct them. Barney seems to have forgotten the spirit of the season; he won’t acknowledge any responsibility for the current mess. Kudos to Bill O’Reilly for calling him on that failure.

In any other industry, someone would a record like Barney Frank would have long since lost his job.

It’s simply amazing that this man who was so for so long spectacularly wrong on Fannie and Freddie’s financial health seek to pass judgment on Republicans who tried to do something to reform those two government-sponsored enterprises before their collapse posed a threat to our Treasury (a threat that Democrat dismissed).

For his past mistakes alone, Frank should step down as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.  His failure to take responsibility provides one more reason we shouldn’t have this man as the helm of this important committee as Congress attempts to fix teh current mess — and prevent it from ever happening again.

When I learned that my Congressman Henry Waxman, Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, was holding hearings this week on Lehman Brothers and AIG, I decided to call his office to see if he was looking into problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

His aide, incredibly helpful and polite, told me that his committee has “jurisdiction over anything in the federal government.”  Fannie and Freddie are government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs).  But, since Waxman took over the committee in 2007, he has not held a single hearing into their meltdown.  Not one.

Politely, I asked his aide to tell the Congressman that this was a “gross dereliction of duty.”  It seems that for Henry Waxman, the only problems in this country are private enterprise and Republicans.

Fannie and Freddie were among the first to fall.  They’ve been having problems for years.  And the Democratic Chairman of the House Oversight Committeee has yet to look into their role in the current financial mess.

UPDATE: I wonder if it came out in Waxman’s hearings that Obama raised more money from Lehman employees than any other Senator save Hillary Clinton.

UP-UPDATE:  Waxman may want to dodge the issue, but at least one Republican, Connecticut’s Chris Shays wants to look into the GSEs shenanigans:

Republican Rep. Chris Shays called for hearings on the role of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the financial crisis Monday, accusing the two mortgage companies of “wretched manipulation” of Congress.

“We are not confronting the 800 pound gorilla in room…the role of Fannie and Freddie in this debacle,” said Shays at a congressional hearing on the financial crisis.

Shays wondered why Democrats will target Wall Street firms during their planned set of hearings, but not Fannie and Freddie, who he said offered the type of subprime loans that helped trigger the crisis.

(Via Jennifer Rubin).

Explaining to Charlie Rose why we’re in the financial mess we’re in, Democratic Congressman Barney Frank, Chairman of the House Financial Services Commitee, said there was a “lack of appropriate regulation.”  Interesting that this man who decries an absence of private sector regulation was so loath to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored enterprises at the center of this mess:

His record is close to perfect as a stalwart opponent of reforming the two companies, going back more than a decade. The first concerted push to rein in Fan and Fred in Congress came as far back as 1992, and Mr. Frank was right there, standing athwart. But things really picked up this decade, and Barney was there at every turn

Hmmm. .. going back to 1992? Wasn’t Barney then partnered to a man who worked at Fannie Mae?

Interesting that a man who blames the crisis on a paucity of regulation of the private sector has a long record of opposing regulation of the public sector.  Shouldn’t government institutions be subject to greater scrutiny given that they don’t face the same market-place risks as does private ones?

Do you think those media guardians ever willing to expose the supposed hypocrisy of gay Republicans will look into the hypocrisy of this gay Democrat?

I wouldn’t bet on it.

UPDATE:  Seems Frank finally got the message that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac needed additional oversight.  Last year, he sponsored H.R. 1427 which would have strengthened oversight of the GSEs. It passed the House, but died in Chris Dodd’s Senate Banking Committee. So, if he finally found it necessary to regulate the GSEs, long after Republicans had been pushing for such reform, why did he blame an absence of private sector regulation? (Via Instapundit.)

His own legislation shows he understood the necessity of additional oversight of government-sponsored institutions. Guess it’s just too hard for a liberal Democrat to let go of his faith in government interference in the free market.

Five years ago, Barney Frank contended that “These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” at the center of the mortgage mess and financial crisis, “are not facing any kind of financial crisis.”  He called them “fundamentally sound financially and withstand some of the disaster scenarios.

Indeed, he wanted to take a little risk with these government-sponsored enterprises:

I do think I do not want the same kind of focus on safety and soundness that we have in OCC [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] and OTS [Office of Thrift Supervision]. I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing. .

Now, it looks like Barney Frank’s risk is costing American taxpayers billions of dollars.

And just as the mainstream media has taken little note of Barney Frank’s past defenses of the soundness of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and his efforts to block Republican efforts to rein in the mortgage giants, they have also paid little heed to the Massachusetts Democrat’s past conflict of interest in dealing with Fannie Mae.

While Frank served on the House Banking Committee in the 1990s, his partner, Herb Moses, worked at Fannie Mae as assistant director of product initiatives from 1991 to 1998. The two lived together at that time, breaking up in 1998, “a few months after Moses ended his seven-year tenure at Fannie Mae.“

While Frank and Moses had “assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest,” others disagree. Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute said:

It’s absolutely a conflict. . . . He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane? . . . If this had been his ex-wife and he was Republican, I would bet every penny I have - or at least what’s not in the stock market - that this would be considered germane. . . . But everybody wants to avoid it because he’s gay. It’s the quintessential double standard.

If we want our relationships treated as traditional marriage, then we must hold them to the same standards.  If a straight Congressman would have stepped down from a committee because it regulated the industry where his wife worked, so too should a gay Congressman step down when his committee regulates an industry where his partner works.

Thus, Frank should have stepped down from the Banking Committee in the 1990s. Not only would he have demonstrated integrity as a legislator, but he would also have shown his commitment to treating gay relationships the same as traditional marriage.

Instead, he wanted to have his cake and eat it too. And he still refuses to take any responsibility for the current crisis. And yet another reason why he should resign his position as Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

ADDENDUM:  While I do think Barney Frank holds a good share of responsbility for this mess, I don’t know if I’d go as far as Mark Steyn who, on linking the article exposing this conflict, writes, “It turns out the entire planetary meltdown is due to Congressman Frank’s sex life.“