I'll say up front this may not make diary standards for length, so if you want to make it an open thread, go ahead. But for some reason this video of Barney Frank letting loose on John Culberson apparently didn't make it over here. For those of you that don't check in at HuffPo regularly (one or two of you?), you have to see this.
Here's the story at Huffington Post.
And for those of you who can't watch now, the main gist: (but you really must watch this when you have time)
Basically the republicans don't want to pass a bill capping executive compensation at bailed out companies. But they also want to complain about the AIG bonuses being allowed in the Recovery and Reinvestment Act and lay that at the dems feet. So they don't want to correct the problem they say the Dems made but they want to harp on them left and right for having made it.
So after Culberson goes on about how the dems didn't even read the reinvestment bill and how awful that bill was, Frank says:
"This is really extraordinary," he said. "What you have just heard is a denunciation of something the Congress did a few weeks ago and a refusal to undo it. I've never seen people, Mr. Chairman, so attached to something they hate. This is presumably a psychological disorder which I am not equipped to diagnose. The objection of the gentleman from Texas was that when the recovery bill was passed, it was passed too quickly [and it] included a provision that shouldn't have been in there. This bill takes it out."
"It is undone by this. And speaking of being undone, my Republican colleagues are being undone by the loss of their whipping boy," Frank said, arguing that Republicans enjoyed scoring political points over the AIG bonuses but didn't want to cap executive compensation generally.
"Truly, all I ask is transparency and for the taxpayers and the people of America to have time to read the bill," responded Culberson.
"The bill under consideration is five-and-a-half pages," Frank said. "I believe even the gentleman from Texas could have read it by now. And if the gentleman from Texas has not been able to read this five-and-a-half page bill, I'll talk long and even if he reads slow, he'll get it done. The point is that this bill undoes what he is complaining about. Note the refusal to address the subject."
Frank then offered some free psychoanalysis. "My colleagues on the other side, it's kind of like kids who have had a toy bear or a blanket and this security blanket means a lot to them. Their security blanket is being able to complain about something that happened before the break," he said.
Sorry if this was diaried yesterday - I'll delete if I just missed it in my search. But I thought many of you would enjoy this verbal slapdown. I love that guy!!!
Also, on copying the above and fair use - since it's mostly quotes, I'm assuming it's ok to put that much up. It's all over at HuffPo. Just let me know. I thought I'd save people the jump. :)