What kind of congressman would Steve Driehaus be? Would he represent the conservative family values of western Hamilton County? They say you can measure a man by the company he keeps; and we got a glimpse of the real Steve Driehaus this weekend.
Driehaus needed a headliner for his fundraiser Saturday at the Queen City Club. Did he bring in a fiscally responsible pro-life Democrat? Nope. He tapped his all-time favorite hero, Barney Frank.
The same Barney Frank who was reprimanded by Congress in 1990 when his employee/lover was found running a gay prostitution service from Frank’s Capitol Hill apartment. Frank, openly homosexual since 1987, also founded the Stonewall Democrats, and the “Frank Rule” for outing closeted gay Republicans.
The same Barney Frank who caused the current financial crisis. The “Patron Saint” of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who in the early nineties used his position on the Financial Services Committee to strong-arm those institutions into making bad loans to “underprivileged families.” Who as recently as July, 2008 said on CNBC, "I think this is a case where Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound, that they are not in danger of going under."
In 2003 Frank rejected Bush administration proposals for increased oversight of Fannie Mae and ignored the need for further government intervention in the mortgage lending industry and stated “These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis, the more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.” Frank was also warned of impending doom in Bush's 2001 State of the Union, by Greenspan in House testimony in 2005, and again by John McCain in 2006. This had been brewing for a long time.
Barney Frank has been a veritable Dr. Evil, unleashing his lame-brain scheme to convert the housing and banking industries into the world’s largest welfare program. A program that blackmailed the taxpayers for $700 billion to bailout his failure. Now Steve Driehaus wants to become his “mini-me.”
Driehaus has projected the image of a conservative, pro-life, Catholic Democrat in an effort to connect with voters on Cincinnati’s west side. But Barney Frank is the antithesis of that image. Recent events have made him an even more toxic commodity. Perhaps that’s why Driehaus did all he could to hold this event in secret. Ordinarily candidates try to publicize their fundraisers loudly and proudly, especially when a nationally known figure is involved. But invitations and announcements were closely guarded, and the Enquirer was told they would not be allowed to cover it. Channel 9 reporters trying to fact-check the story were brushed off.
Somebody should have told Driehaus about the “COAST rule” for outing closeted tax-and-spenders.
Driehaus apparently didn't get the memo. Send him another one.
ReplyDeletepardon my ignorance, but what does someone's sexual orientation or position on abortion have to do with your stated purpose of "opposing additional taxes and spending"?
ReplyDeleteHas it occurred to you (and, if so, do you care) that there are plenty of us who share your views on fiscal responsibiltiy wihtout sharing your apparent views on completely unrelated social issues?
"The same Barney Frank who caused the current financial crisis"
ReplyDeleteReally?? So HE is the one to blame?? I'm sick of hearing the blame being pinned on one person and one party. The FACT is that there is plenty of blame to go around on BOTH parties. Isn't their enough mud-slinging going on already?
Anon 9:20,
ReplyDeleteI wrote the piece and my son helped me with the artwork. I agree that abortion and sexual orientation are separate issues, unrelated to fiscal responsibility. And I do care about keeping them separate. In fact one of the reasons we founded COAST was to pursue a conservative agenda on fiscal issues without getting bogged down in social contraversy. It was also partly to fill the void left as other organizations like Family First and CCV pursue a conservative social agenda while being essentially silent on fiscal issues. Somebody has to carry the torch for financial responsibility.
I had to touch on orientation to introduce the Frank Rule, which is a subtext of the story. Barney Frank says, "I believe in the right to privacy, but that should not be a right to hypocrisy." And that's his justification for outing gay Republicans. We hold a similar view within our fiscal focus, and feel compelled to "out" closeted tax & spenders in all parties.
Driehaus is running in a very conservative district and holding himself out to be just as conservative as those he seeks to represent. Not just fiscally, but socially too. Abortion is the social value he trumpets. I mentioned it, not to promote that issue, but as another example of Driehaus' hypocrisy.
Driehaus wouldn't fly in a high profile guest to headline his event if they were polar opposites. Therefore Driehaus and Frank must be cut from the same cloth. And yet Driehaus did everything in his power to hide this meeting under a bushel basket. He couldn't just keep it private, it had to be secret. Barney Frank and all he represents are anathema to 1st district voters and all they stand for. A picture of Driehaus and Frank together in the Enquirer would guaranty Chabot's re-election.
That's hypocrisy, plain and simple. And since Frank is the central figure in the largest tax and spending fiasco in this country's history, COAST had to call him on it.
Anon 11:36,
ReplyDeleteYou're quite correct that there is plenty of blame to go around. And the mud slinging isn't on both sides isn't productive. But this is an enormous problem and unless we learn from history, we're doomed to repeat it.
Congress as a whole gutted the Glass-Steagall Act with the Commodity Futures Modernization Act and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Republican contributors wanted broader markets for the new mortgage backed derivatives and Democrats sought to use fiscal policy to extend home ownership to their constituencies who weren’t credit-worthy. So both parties were complicit in creating this fiasco. The banks were also complicit. Mortgage brokers knew full-well the loans they were making would not be paid off; but they kicked them up the chain, collected their commissions, and moved on, calling it “somebody else’s problem”.
But when you go back and dissect the events that led us to this point, the same face keeps appearing over and over again. Barney Frank. As a minority member of the Financial Services Committee (when Rs controlled the House) he sowed the seeds during creation of the GSEs. After the Ds took over, and as committee chair, he strong-armed Fannie and Freddie to make more loans at the bottom of the market. Later, as it fell apart, he thwarted every attempt of treasury and the Fed to make a correction.
When the movie is eventually made of this crisis, many actors will play key supporting roles, but there will be only one star of that show, the Barney Frank Character.
Mr. Miller -
ReplyDeleteJust several months ago, COAST did another gay-bashing article as well, and there was no financial aspect to the story at all. The pattern is clear.
Very sad example you're setting for your son.
Anon 9:08,
ReplyDeleteYou're going to have to explain yourself because I don't see it.
I bashed Barney Frank for his censure, just as I would if he were running a call-girl service, and for ruining our economy by being a fiscal putz. And I bashed Steve Driehaus for being a hypocrite liberal trying to hide under a cloak of false conservatism.
I named the "COAST Rule" in homage to the "Frank Rule". How is any of that gay-bashing?
You/COAST worked with CCV to circulate some nonsense gay-bashing email earlier this year as well. It's obvious what you're doing----gay-bashing to score points and undermine people. Why hide now, pretending you're not?(particularly ironic when you're accusing Driehaus of hiding)
ReplyDeleteMark,
ReplyDeleteI take some of your points, but I still think you could have left out all the references to "family values", "pro life" and "Frank, openly homosexual since 1987, also founded the Stonewall Democrats" without in any way diluting your central (and valid) point about Frank's role in the financial crisis and the comparison between the Frank Rule and the COAST rule.
I recall a COAST newsletter from the summer that chided the Hamilton County Commission for passing a Gay Pride resolution, wondering how many county resources were wasted on it. I emailed then to say that probably very few resources were involved, and that I highly doubted the author (Chris Finney, I think) would have had the same "fiscal" objection to a Pro Life resolution.
Both posts struck me as an attempt to appeal to the faction (quite likely a majority) of your readership that is both fiscally and socially conservative.
I'd just strongly recommend that you bear in mind that some percentage of your audience is not socially conservative, and consider whether some of your "asides" that seem to take for granted that the readers are socially conservative may in fact alienate some of your readership.
Mark, the point is, if you throw in your gay-bashing rants amid your fiscal conservative stuff, just admit what you're doing and why. (Anon 1:17 p.m. is at least honest with his sad views, and is clearly the type of COASTer you're trying to appeal to through your gay-bashing emails).
ReplyDeleteDon't throw in needless insults and then try to pretend you haven't. You're not fooling anyone.