Barney Frank appropriately slams GOP hypocrisy
Barney Frank called out Dennis Hastert and the GOP for their hypocrisy on moral values and gay issues in a manner only he could. He was referring to the indictment of former Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert for his banking irregularities allegedly for paying off someone with whom he had a homosexual involvement.
It was surprising when the news broke.
When news broke that former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert had been indicted for structuring transactions to avoid IRS detection and lying about it to the FBI, it sounded like routine corruption. The details of the indictment, though, point in a different direction, stressing Hastert’s time as a high school teacher and that Individual A, who Hastert was attempting to pay off “to compensate for and conceal his prior misconduct against,” “has been a resident of Yorkville, Illinois and has known defendant JOHN DENNIS HASTERT most of Individual A’s life.” So how do we read this?
Barney Frank discussed the indictment on All In with Chris Hayes. He had some memorable zingers.
“There is a hypocrisy issue,” Barney Frank said. “Dennis Hastert was a member of the House who voted for the Defense of Marriage act. He subsequently as Speaker twice put before the House of Representatives the constitutional amendment that would have cancelled retroactively all the same sex marriages that had taken place legally. … The rank hypocrisy of this man using his power to persecute other people for doing what he was doing. Secondly, and it is relevant to note that in terms of the hypocrisy area, you mentioned Gingrich had to quit. It turns out Gingrich was at the time having an affair with the woman he is now married who was an employee of the House Agriculture Committee. And then Livingston who was supposed to replace him had to quit because he was having an affair not just with a woman but with a lobbyist who was lobbying him. So then in an effort to get somebody [who was clean], they get Hastert. The point is that all this was happening while they were impeaching Bill Clinton for having oral sex. So I think that it now looks like if you take Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, Dennis Hastert, and Robert Livingston the the Republican Speakers or would be speakers, Clinton is a choir boy.”
Projection continues. Enough said.