MSNBC "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" - Transcript

Interview

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REP. BARNEY FRANK (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Unfortunately, yes. And let me

throw in one other thing, and the Republican leadership finally decided to

say no, although they still are ambivalent about it, saying, well, yes,

this angry and people aren"t listening to you.

Well, obviously, we are listening. But they mean is what you said

early on. They lost the vote. And in a democracy, when you lose a vote,

that"s not a justification for violent threatening behavior.

But on Sunday morning, a couple people violated the most basic rule of

a parliamentary democracy. They began disrupting the proceedings of the

House of Representatives from the gallery. Two of the officials went to

throw them out. These aren"t cops, these are civilian ushers.

It"s a very dangerous place with a steep pitch and sort of wrestling

people who are trying to resist this. It"s not a fun thing.

To my disgust, dozens of Republicans of the House stood up and egged

on the protesters. Here were people violently resisting law enforcement

people trying to preserve fundamental order in a parliamentary assembly and

they were being cheered on by the Republicans.

I"ve never seen this. I"ve never the kind vituperation that was being

expressed by people outside and obviously, people--look, under the First

Amendment, you have the right to be a jerk. In fact, the First Amendment

protects jerks, because if you"re a nice person, nobody will try to shut

you up. So, no one is talking about their legal right to behave in such a

terrible fashion, although the threats and spitting obviously go beyond

that. But you had the Republicans all day Sunday cheering them on.

And finally, because the political reaction was so negative, you have

John Boehner denouncing it. Earlier, the reaction was to say these were

isolated incidents. As I said to one friend, yes, you know, what"s 40 or

50 isolated incidents in a day?

O"DONNELL: Now, we saw Congressman Bart Stupak kind of shrug off

getting death threats. I saw you shrug off the things that were yelled at

you over the weekend, speaking to Rachel Maddow on this network. You just

shrugged these things off.

How do you do that? I don"t think there"s any viewers out there

watching this who can imagine getting death threats or getting yelled at

the way you"ve been yelled, called the names you"ve been called, and just

shrugging it off and walking into work. How do you guys do that?

FRANK: Well, a couple of things. First of all, I--I have to say,

maybe I"m luckier than some of my colleagues. I don"t get death threats so

much. I get after death threats. That is people tell what"s going to

happen to me after I die and I"m frankly un-persuaded that they"re going to

have a lot to do with that.

But yes, I got to understand them. My partner, Jim Ready, is a guy

who is new to politics through our connection, and he--we had a weekend

plan, but because of the votes, he came down to join me for the weekend and

accompanied me. And, you know, I saw through his reaction he"s not used to

having people yelling homophobic threats and other vicious kind of "I hate

you, you should die," and it is very troubling. I guess, we just kind of

get used to it.

And in some ways, frankly, when you"re in this business, I hate to say

that, I wish I had done it, but it did occur to me, knowing politics as I

do and knowing the American people as I think I do--at least a very large

percentage of them--I knew this was going to backfire on them. I knew

that the average American was going to be angry at this, especially when it

was the Republicans egging it on.

And let me throw in something I talked about before--John Boehner

goes to the American bankers last Wednesday--and this is part of this

bullying approach--and says to the bankers, "Don"t worry, I will protect

you against regulation." Not, "I"ll make it better." Not, "I"ll try and

improve the package." "I"ll try and kill the whole thing. I"ll leave you

free to do all the things you"ve done before," to these bankers and other

financial institutions.

And then he says, referring to the people who work for us on Capitol

Hill--who are very hard working, decent people--"And don"t let these

little punk staffers take advantage of you."

Now, what struck me is the Massachusetts legislature recently passed a

bill, unanimously, Republicans and Democrats, to try and control bullying

at junior high school and even in elementary school and high school. And

that"s a serious problem, when they single-out people who seem to be

different. Well, it doesn"t do much good for us to pass any bullying

legislation and then have young people turn on the television and see

bullying tactics being egged on by the Republican leadership.

O"DONNELL: Congressman Frank, a quick one before you go, I have to

ask you this. I remember vividly--vividly--in the 1990s when Dick

Armey called you a name that you heard yelled at you today. Dick Armey is

now a favorite speaker at tea party events. I don"t think that is just a

coincidence. Do you?

FRANK: No, I think that there"s anger there--look, I think there

are people there who long for the good old days when black people, frankly,

weren"t given full equal rights. Some of them go that far back.

Certainly, there are people that don"t think gay men and women should be

able to walk around without being embarrassed and ashamed.

I"m sure the fact that I was walking with Jim, and I"m a member of

Congress, bothered people, and I think it is the attitude that they"ve

heard from some of right-wing leader that"s egged it on.

O"DONNELL: Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts, I admire your

courage in getting up and going to work every day at this point.

FRANK: Thank you very much, Lawrence.

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