Media Nation

The devolution of our political culture is perhaps best summed up in this passage from David Shribman’s Boston Globe obituary of Barney Frank, the legendary progressive congressman who died Tuesday evening:

Mr. Frank was involved in two bailout efforts to battle the 2008 economic crisis, first for foundering financial services institutions and then for the nation’s automobile companies.

“If Barney had not been chairman of the House Financial Services Committee during the financial crisis, I shudder to think what would have happened to our economy,” said Henry Paulson, a former CEO of Goldman Sachs who served as President George W. Bush’s Treasury secretary during the meltdown. “He was in the right spot at the right time.”

Now we are dealing with what looks a lot like a tech bubble plus mounting economic pressures from Donald Trump’s illegal war against Iran — and there isn’t a Barney Frank in sight.

I also found this Shribman sentence particularly graceful:

Through more than a half-century of political activism, political agitation, political campaigning, and political maneuvering, his presence on the left in Massachusetts politics exceeded the combined left field tenure of Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski in Fenway Park.

Today Frank is probably best known as the first member of Congress to come out as gay voluntarily. But there was a lot more to his career than that. His work stretched back many decades, and it was consequential.

I’m old enough to remember when Frank was a top aide to Boston Mayor Kevin White and, later, a member of the state legislature. He was elected to Congress for the first time in 1980, when he succeeded Father Robert Drinan, himself a progressive legend. Two years later, he defeated moderate Republican Margaret Heckler in a battle of incumbent House members, a situation forced by reapportionment. He continued to serve until 2013, when he was succeeded by Joe Kennedy III.

I think I only interviewed Frank once, briefly, while I was at The Boston Phoenix. Frank was notoriously abrupt with reporters, so I tried to steel myself — but he must have been in a good mood that day. What I remember is that I’d asked for his thoughts on a story I was writing, and he called me back from outside a committee hearing. I’m paraphrasing, but he began something like this: A Democrat’s talking, so I’ve got a few minutes. I only have to pay attention when it’s a Republican.

There won’t be another one like Barney Frank.