Barney Frank's a smart guy, but...

...you wouldn't guess it from this piece at the Huffington Post.

Well, actually, you would guess it from the piece, because it's a classic example of misdirection: Reconstruing Obama's call for avoiding a refighting "the Washington battles of the 1990's." Frank writes:

I agree that it would have been better not to have had to fight over some of the issues that occupied us in the nineties. But there would have been only one way to avoid them -- and that would have been to give up. More importantly, the only way I can think of to avoid "refighting the same fights we had in the 1990's", to quote Senator Obama, is to let our opponents win these fights without a struggle.

It would have been nice in the nineties not to have had to fight to defend a woman's right to choose whether or not to have an abortion, and I would be very happy if that fight ended tomorrow.

And so on. Of course, Obama isn't arguing that it was bad to talk about abortion rights, or gay rights, or the Republican "Contract with America." He is, however, talking about the poisonous political atmosphere that came to a head with the Clintons and has continued to even greater heights under Bush. It's frankly (yeah, yeah) disheartening to see Frank pull something like this.

Then again, we all know that Clinton will be pulling every lever and cord in the Democratic machine to ensure her path to the nomination, and Barney Frank is a smart, talented Democratic lever. I just wish he'd put that intelligence and political skill to better use than this cheap, Clinton-machine tactic.

Comments

[discount coach]

Just for today I will adjust myself to what is, and not try to adjust everything to my own desires. I will take my "luck" as it comes.