October 19, 2007

So, Exactly How Much Does Barney Frank NOT Care… About ANY of Us?

This piece in the Pasadena Star News is about Barney Frank throwing transgendered people under the ENDA bus.

ENDA Cake, A La Barney Frank

Never mind the obviously biased, right-wing slant — the writer states that “crossdressers are one example” of transgendered people — that’s not the point.

The point is that if the quotes from Frank himself are accurate, he’s an even bigger traitor to the LGBT community than we thought:

For Democrats, there’s no pleasing the fringes

. . .

No one has earned more stripes promoting gay rights than [Barney Frank], but the Democrat now finds himself targeted by, of all groups, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. And as usual, he’s not holding return fire.

“For some of these people, you can never be an ally,” Frank told me. And the proper response is to “call their bluff.”

“Who are they going to run against me?” he asks. “Larry Craig?”

. . .

Frank marvels at their [gay advocates’] poor grasp of political reality.

“They think that getting a bill protecting sexual orientation is easy,” he says. “We started on the gay and lesbian thing decades ago.”

. . .

Frank sees the campaign to push transgender rights into the anti-discrimination bill as creating a potential “Terri Schiavo” moment for the Democrats - that is, a situation where the fringes drag their party into a crusade that makes the broader public think its leaders are out of their gourds.

The radicals have no idea what it takes to get things done in the real world, Frank complains. And they have wacky expectations.

“We’re supposed to pass with votes from Indiana, Nebraska and South Carolina a better bill than we have in Massachusetts and New York,” Frank says. … “Like America is supposed to be easier than New York,” he adds.

. . .

The babysitting has got to stop, Barney Frank says. And if that means displeasing people who were never terribly loyal to begin with, so be it.

Sapphocrat says:

If the quotes aren’t accurate, then he ought to sue the crap out of that rag.

Speaking of rags… I wouldn’t normally pay attention to what a right-wing blog has to say, but so far, I’ve found mention of Frank’s remarks only on the Right — and the particular blog I’m about to quote doesn’t seem quite as hysterical as most (calling us liberals “a battalion of frothing extremists” isn’t the worst thing we’ve heard), and makes a couple of points — about Frank’s “reasoning,” and the portent of a trend — worth keeping in the back of one’s head:

Leading A Counter-Offensive?

I’m thinking this may be a bit of a coordinated pushback against the far left fringe. Froma Harrop writes about Barney Frank and the assault he is under from the gay community. Or at least some elements in that group. This is the second major story about this particular incident - and Frank seems to be pushing it for a reason.

. . .

Frank is senior enough - and has enough liberal credentials - to fight this fight with the fringe. I rather suspect the counter-offensive is intentional and timed to start forcing the fringe back as the general election nears. (Frank has a couple of really good zingers quoted by Harrop, by the way.) If we see more pushback from other very liberal and very secure Democrats, then it will be a confirmed, coordinated effort. We’ve already seen David Obey hit the “idiot liberals” publicly. A third one would define a trend.

By “the second major story,” the writer is referring to an October 12 piece in the New York Times about “the recent fury directed by gay groups at Mr. Frank,” and which quotes Frank: “The likelihood that somebody is going to run against me in my district on the grounds that I have been insufficiently pro-gay is not very high on my list of concerns.”

What the RW blogger doesn’t realize is that the NYT article is hardly the first “major story” about Frank’s arrogant dismissiveness — but then, I doubt most RWers are giving ENDA much attention (or not as much attention as they will after the transgender-less version comes down to a sign-or-veto fight).

Of course, we’ve been lambasted by plenty of Dems all along — comments about “the fringe,” and how the Dem Party doesn’t need us, are why I can no longer abide by Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer (to name just two) — so I don’t see getting backhanded by two such seemingly disparate types as Frank and Obey as the start of a “trend.”

But it’s turned, undeniably, into a pattern for Frank himself — and one must wonder not so much who’s giving him his marching orders (that’s easy to figure out), but why he’s willing to alienate such a huge percentage of LGBT Americans over ENDA.

But maybe I’m overreading, and the answer really is just as obvious as it seems: Frank values politics — and pats on the head from his masters — over doing the right thing. And while he deserves credit for introducing ENDA, the way he’s “fought” for it exposes the emptiness of all his rhetoric about fairness and justice. And he certainly doesn’t give a damn about LGBT Americans as a whole; his “concern” extends only to his own constituents, and whether or not they will keep re-electing him. (No wonder his Web site won’t accept email from outside his district.)

In the end, I think it’s clear that Barney Frank is as much a House Negro as any Log Cabin Republican.

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Posted by: Sapphocrat