Barney Frank Twists the Truth
by Robert B. Bluey — 06-30-2006 @ 10:34 AM Reader Comments (3)
Liberal Rep. Barney Frank (D.-Mass.) has a knack for being dramatic, but the next time he pulls a stunt like yesterday's outburst on the House floor, he ought to come prepared to tell the truth.
In an effort to set the record straight last night, Rep. Rick Renzi (R.-Ariz.) spoke on the House floor about the Democrats' advance knowledge of the Treasury Department's secret bank surveillance program tracking terrorists' finances, which was disclosed by the New York Times last week. After Renzi finished speaking, Frank nearly blew a gasket.
Liberal bloggers at Crooks and Liars and Truthdig are praising the pot-bellied Frank for his "smack down" of Renzi. But if these bloggers had actually paid attention to the larger debate and not just Frank's loud mouth, they'd realize that this is just another example of Democrats' twisting the truth.
The premise of Frank's argument -- that Democrats didn't know about the details of the program until it was about to be revealed -- doesn't hold up. The reason, a well-placed Republican source told me, is that once you're briefed on a program -- as Democrat Reps. Jane Harman and Nancy Pelosi were in 2002 -- you can be briefed on it again at any time you'd like.
My source tells me that Harman, ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, was briefed about the program three times, and Pelosi, the party's minority leader, had one briefing. Frank was correct when he said Pelosi was no "fortuneteller." But what he conveniently left out was the fact that Pelosi -- and Harman -- had every opportunity to know exactly what the Bush Administration was doing with the program, and should they so choose, question their motives behind closed doors -- and not on the front page of the New York Times.
Barney Frank can proclaim to be a truth-teller, but he's really just a liberal windbag using high drama to distort the facts. |
