Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Barney Frank at Crooks & Liars.. Taking questions Giving answers

Rep. Barney Frank did a live chat with everyone at Crooks & Liars this afternoon and answered questions from everyone.

No, he didn't get all the questions answered because they came at him pretty fast.. but he did manage to answer most of them. Here is one of the answers I thought was pretty noteworthy to a question about the Republicans and how to make them realize they lost:

They lost in part because George Bush went too far
Wed, 04/08/2009 - 13:05 — BarneyFrank
I am a strong supporter of the rights of Unions, so I am a little hesitant about answering this because it means I would be working out of classification – this is more about therapy than about politics. But there is one political response: the dominant faction in the Congress today among Republicans, especially in the House, incredibly believes that they lost in part because George Bush went too far to the left. The one thing that will give the reasonable forces within the Republican Party the leverage they need to change things is a Republican defeat in the 2010 Congressional elections. That is, only when they are confronted with the need to survive is reality likely to win out


Yeah, that's right.. they think they lost because Bush when too far left.. that's why they are pulling so far to the right now. They have no clue what we rejected from them. That's why they are going further with the tax cuts and more of Bush's failed policies.

Another one, answering to the right wing nuts of Bachmann and McHenry craziness.

Responding to Attacks
Wed, 04/08/2009 - 12:47 — BarneyFrank
First, let’s not make a bad situation worse than it is – Patrick McHenry and Michele Bachman do sit on the Financial Services Committee, but Virginia Foxx is not one of those guarding this particular chicken coop. As to the very conservative Members who do serve on the Committee, excessive partisanship is part of the motivation, but even more prominent is their passionate commitment to a very extreme form of conservatism. This hard lined ideological rigidity according to which the market is never in need of intervention and regulation is in all cases to be opposed is what keeps them from participating in a constructive way in our work. When you hear Members of the Committee condemn the socialist tendencies of the President and the failure of the President and his appointees to show any understanding of the capitalist system, and you realize that they are talking about George Bush, you get sense of how removed they are from reality.


It is very interesting and he has some great things to say. Barney Frank is very intelligent and knows of what he speaks when it comes to banking. He is very supportive of the President and of his policies and he doesn't do it blindly. Well worth a few minutes to read the questions and the responses.

2 comments:

lisahgolden said...

I missed it because of there were too many people around the house to focus. Thank you for the update!

trishSWFL said...

I missed it too. Working on the dreaded t@xes. Due next Wednesday...have to make myself finish them!

Annette, thanks for all the good information you provide here. HUGS!