RUSH: Barney Frank, ladies and gentlemen, is not happy that The Messiah is not asserting himself. And, frankly, he may have a point, because if Obama had already asserted himself and told Bush, ‘Get out of the way, we got problems here to fix,’ the poor woman may not have drowned at Proposal Rock because he may have already lowered the sea level enough so that the riptides would not have been so severe. Here’s Barney Frank yesterday in Washington at a consumer advocates event.
RUSH: You can look at this one of two ways. The Democrats are already starting to crack up here, but you can’t deny the fact here that Barney just ripped Obama and demanded that The Messiah end up being more assertive. Now, also, a point that I made last night in my speech, all this bipartisan stuff, look where it got us. All this talk about, ‘I can work with Democrats, I can cross the aisle, I can get deals done with Democrats,’ I never hear Democrats talking about wanting to work with us. I never hear them run for reelection, saying, ‘Boy, I can really work with those Republicans.’ Listen to Barney Frank yesterday at the same event talk about this.
FRANK: I know people tell us in principle to be nonpartisan but the fact is, on a lot of these issues, regulation, et cetera, there are big differences between the parties. It is a great mistake to assume that parties are irrelevant to this process, and that’s why my one difference with the president-elect, about whom I am very enthusiastic, is when he talks about being post-partisan and having lived with this very right-wing Republican group that runs the House most of the time, the notion of trying to deal with them as if we could be post-partisan gives me post-partisan depression.
RUSH: Now, the guy comes up with some funny lines, but he’s telling the truth. He doesn’t want any bipartisanship. He’s out to defeat Republicans! We’re the ones that seem to want to get along and look where it gets us?
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Barney Frank, I’m watching TV this morning, I’m doing Show Prep, and I see Barney up there, I’m saying, ‘What’s he doing now?’ And this is what he said.
FRANK: All of us remember in school, the teachers we hated most were the teachers who said if one person misbehaved the whole class would get extra homework. I don’t want to give the whole country extra homework because automobile executives in the past misbehaved. Yeah, a lot of mistakes were made, the auto companies made mistakes, unions made mistakes, politicians made mistakes —
RUSH: Really?
FRANK: — the media hasn’t always distinguished itself, ‘You’re not supposed to say that.’ The consequences of all those mistakes is that the country is to some extent held hostage. We need to free the country. The focal country is not to punish those who made the mistakes. It is to prevent further damage to the country and it’s in that context that this committee will proceed.
(playing of Banking Queen spoof)
Our old buddy Paul Shanklin there with the vocal portrayal of Barney Frank and Banking Queen. Tom Brokaw is not happy, by the way, with Barney Frank. Early in the program Barney Frank expressed exasperation with Obama for not being more assertive. On the Today Show today, Meredith Vieira asked Brokaw about what Barney Frank had said.
BROKAW: Well, Barney Frank’s not the president, and Barack Obama is, and this is something that he feels very strongly about. And you see in his appointments already in keeping Bob Gates as the Defense Secretary, putting Jim Jones in as the National Security Advisor, that he does want to give the country not just the impression, but the reality that he is determined to try to close this polarized gap that we’ve had in Washington.
RUSH: Which Barney Frank does not want closed and, eh, eh, a little trade secret here, folks, don’t tell anybody, just keep it between us, Obama doesn’t want to close it, either. We are being stealthed with these appointments. We’re putting out all these so-called moderates and Clinton people, but I’m telling you hard leftists are going to run this country for Barack Obama. Let’s not forget, Tom Brokaw is not sure himself even about Barack Obama.
CHARLIE ROSE: I don’t know what Barack Obama’s worldview is.
BROKAW: No, I don’t either.
ROSE: I don’t know how he really sees where China is.
BROKAW: We don’t know a lot about Barack Obama and the universe of his thinking about foreign policy.
ROSE: I don’t really know. And do we know anything about the people who are advising him?
BROKAW: You know, that’s an interesting question.
ROSE: He is principally known through his autobiography and through very aspirational speeches.
BROKAW: I don’t know what books he’s read.
ROSE: What do we know about the heroes of Barack Obama?
BROKAW: There’s a lot about him we don’t know.
RUSH: But now I guess Brokaw knows everything he needs to know because of the appointments. He’s got Hillary Clinton over there so she’s going to become the face of whatever happens in the Iraq war, but this administration is going to be exactly what we told you, it’s going to be as extreme leftist in the things that they do and they try to do behind the scenes as we’ve ever had.