Posted on 10/15/2010 5:44:46 AM PDT by suspects
Could Don Draper sell Barney Frank?
Don Draper is the central character on the popular and (as I can personally attest) addictive TV drama “Mad Men.” He is a marketing miracle worker, the prototypical ad man from Madison Avenue’s heyday.
He’s a guy who can sell anything. But I bet Barney Frank would leave him stumped.
Who is Barney Frank’s market? If you’re a “good government” white-collar suburbanite, Frank’s been a disaster. When he’s not in a personal relationship with an executive at an agency he oversees (Frank’s former partner, Herb Moses, was an executive at Fannie Mae) Frank’s on vacation to the Virgin Islands riding the private jet of a Wall Street tycoon - another person whose industry he regulates.
So maybe you’re a results-oriented pragmatist who just wants politicians who keep the trains running on time. Has any congressman ever wreaked so much economic damage on his nation?
Even Frank admits that he had “ideological blinders” about Freddie/Fannie. His push to put the taxpayer on the hook for high-risk loans to special-interest borrowers was done in the name of liberal politics, not economic rationality.
He now claims he just didn’t know any better. But everybody knew better in the summer of 2008 when Frank claimed “Freddie and Fannie are not in danger.”
Two months later they were bankrupt.
Here’s just one frightening phrase from a memo in Frank’s congressional committee: Fannie and Freddie participated in transactions “that would not normally be considered to be economically viable.”
“Not considered economically viable” could be Frank’s campaign motto. From opposing Reaganomics to opposing welfare reform to opposing the Bush tax cuts, Frank’s been wrong on nearly every major issue since taking office in 1980.
Then there’s Frank’s (ahem) winning personality. Voters looking for a shaken hand or a well-kissed baby shouldn’t...
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonherald.com ...
Perhaps Barney’s in the wrong market. Perhaps he should be exported to the freedom loving peoples of NK.
Hard to market this idiot to sane people which leads to only one possible conclusion about the sanity of the people in his district....
I doubt Don could help sell the loser; but if anyone could make Barney straight, it would be Joan
In truth, Barney Frank is an impressive and intelligent person. It’s just that after being in office forever, he forgot that he is still beholden to the voters. He has fallen into the kind of self-delusion and wishful thinking which he once so commonly and correctly derided in both Democrats and Republicans.
Impressive and intelligent? To whom, illiterates and street people? Name a single major policy from Reaganomics through ObamaCare he’s gotten right.
The old Barney was a refreshingly intellectually honest liberal. He often admitted to failures and inconsistencies in liberal policies. Being in Washington too long has corrupted him. One needn’t agree with liberals to recognize that they have legitimate (if misguided) views.
“But I bet Barney Frank would leave him stumped.”
Going for the cheap laugh, are we? Bawney’s probably left quite a few young, thin, attractive, artsy, actressy men “stumped”.
PS: I ardently want to see Barney lose. I do believe that he was at one time at least well intentioned, if misguided. He fell into the trap of not listening to his critics, not reexaming the effects of the policies he advocated and has become reflexively defensive.
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