And here we thought we were done with him. Apparently not:
Former Rep. Barney Frank says it was the year-end standoff over the fiscal cliff that prompted him to seek an appointment to John Kerry’s Senate seat and then to go public with hopes for his next career move.
Asked why he changed his mind, Frank told POLITICO that, during a House Democratic Caucus meeting on the heated fiscal cliff negotiations, he had a change of heart, as he confronted the details of the bill that Congress would pass.
“We’ve put off the sequester for a couple of months, and we will decide in a couple of months what to do about spending cuts,” Frank said. “And the debt limit will come up. And there will be efforts to reduce Medicare and Social Security. … So it was when I sat there and learned what important decisions were going to be have to be made in February, March and April, I decided that I wanted the job.”
Frank had previously said it would be “presumptuous” to comment on a job that hasn’t been offered when asked whether he would want the interim Senate seat that will open up if Kerry is confirmed as secretary of state. But soon after, Frank revealed on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that he had told Bay State Gov. Deval Patrick he wanted the job.
“Previously, I was facing a situation in which the first few months of the year, as they often are, would not be very important in terms of legislation, and it would have been more ceremonial than substantive. I’m not a big ceremony guy,” Frank told POLITICO in an interview Tuesday.
Frank goes on to say that he has ruled out running in the Special Election, which would take place if Massachusetts’ current senior Senator, John F. Kerry, is confirmed as the next Secretary of State. Why should we trust his word, given how much he helped cause this entire mess and now he wants to “help the country?” Yeah, RIGHT. He’ll help shove more crap down our throats…and I’ll just leave it at that.
