12 Fascinating Facts that Didn’t Make our Barney Frank Profile
by Maureen Tkacik, Boston Magazine
Upon being surrounded by news cameras and microphones outside Nancy Pelosi’s office the week the bailout package was being ironed out, Rep. Barney Frank (D. Mass) said, "“I have nothing to say except I know how Britney Spears feels.”In the December issue of Boston magazine, Maureen Tkacik profiled Barney Frank for her story, “A Crash Course in Crisis Economics.” The constraints of a 3,500-word piece against the backdrop of an economic meltdown left some of her material on the cutting-room floor. But that’s why we have the Internet. Take it away, Moe:
Barney Frank is a politician of many years, many thoughts, many achievements and many, many words. I would have liked to have done justice to this man in the space allotted; alas, the art department didn’t appreciate my proposal to shrink the text down to 8 point font in a subtle tribute to the “fine print” on the subprime mortgages that begot the credit crisis.So here are some of our favorite quotes, footnotes and outtakes:
1. Frank started his political career trying to find things to do, rather than complete his Harvard doctoral dissertation. So he went to work on the first of legendary Boston mayor Kevin White’s four mayoral elections. When Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in White’s first few months in office, Frank was one of the biggest forces behind the city’s successful bid to save a James Brown concert that had been canceled in the city—a move widely credited with saving Boston from the sort of riots that devastated so many other cities.
It was up to the late then-solicitor Thomas Adkins to explain to Frank who James Brown was. (Frank had thought he was a football player.)
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Also of interest on Congressman Frank:
Barney's Frank's Gay Lover Was Fannie May Executive...
And for those unfamiliar with Barney's "history," click here.
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