Barney Frank's Disastrous Cronyism

Corruption: How is it that a GOP politico can get drummed out of the Senate for bathroom acts while Rep. Barney Frank merits not even a flicker of censure for economically disastrous cronyism? When will the double standard end?

Two years after politically motivated mortgage lending triggered the biggest collapse since the Great Depression, House Finance Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., has been found to have helped one of his lovers, Herbie Moses, land a six-figure job at Fannie Mae, the agency at the center of the meltdown and one he had a responsibility to regulate.

Instead of exerting oversight over this agency to serve the public, he used the agency to benefit cronies and himself. It's hardly the first time he's exacted favors for his lovers - he used his office to "fix" the traffic tickets of another lover years ago.

He didn't do it because he was a softie. New York Times reporter and author Gretchen Morgenson found that Frank "was one of (Fannie Mae's) really big beneficiaries, albeit indirectly," as she told NPR.

Using office for personal benefit? This should be a slam-dunk case for resignation.

But there are no calls, not for a powerful Democrat, and that points to an amazing double standard.

In recent years, Republican Sen. John Ensign was told to beat it over his extramarital affairs. World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz was told to quit over insufficiently recusing himself from setting his girlfriend's salary. Sen. Larry Craig was forced out over what he called a "wide stance" in a public restroom.

But authentic corruption - the kind that affects the public because it involves using public funds for private gain and as well as looking the other way - somehow doesn't merit congressional sanction for Barney Frank.

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The arrogant dismissals and rationalizations among Democrats indicate that this is a party that's been so long in power it cannot see that laws apply to them, too.

Frank's camp has provided a litany of excuses, ranging from the recommendation meant nothing to "everyone does it" to the claim that bad lending happened after Frank's lover left. None hold water, because the organization was corrupted by the hiring itself. Corrupt people commit corrupt acts - as the 2008 collapse shows.

That's left real-world consequences for the rest of us who pay in the end. Frank won't stop as long as no one kicks him out. Who in Congress will stand up on behalf of the people against this cronyism?