QotD: Barney Frank

On his retirement from Congress and his plans for the future (via MSNBC):

I will neither be a lobbyist nor a historian .... One of the advantages to me of not running for office is I don't even have to try to pretend to be nice to people I don't like ... and the notion of being a lobbyist, and having to go and try to be nice to people I don't like -- it would be ridiculous.

To be fair, he's never been very well-known for trying to pretend to be nice to people he didn't like while in office. Which is one of his few redeeming qualities (but not the only one).

Frankly, my dear ...

Announcing that the government should mind its own business on marijuana is really not that hard. There's not a lot of complexity here. We should stop treating people as criminals because they smoke marijuana. The problem is the political will. ... there should be a small number of things that the government makes illegal, but the great bulk of human activity ought to be none of the government's business. People can make their own choices.

Everybody stand back! Get up against a wall and hang on for dear life, because Eric Dondero's going to come charging through any minute now, foaming at the mouth, knocking over the furniture and trampling the women as he tries to get at this guy and pin a "libertarian Republican" button on his suit before he gets away. Oh, wait ... one problem ... Barney Frank isn't a Republican, is he?

And let's face it, he's not the elusive "libertarian Democrat" (NEVER BEFORE SEEN IN THE WILD!) either. But he does get it right on some issues. Aside from marijuana, he's also right on Internet gambling, on marriage apartheid and on "don't ask, don't tell," three issues that most allegedly "libertarian" Republicans (Ron Paul included) come down dead wrong on at least two of.