Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage.

AuthorCalabria, Mark A.

Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage

Barney F rank

New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015, 400 pp.

As a social scientist, it is easy to forget that policy is ultimately made by people--real, living human beings participating in real-world institutions. At the center of American public policymaking is Congress, an institution largely populated by forgettable names and faces. Barney Frank is not one of those. His recent book, Frank, which takes us from his earliest days in Boston politics to his recent retirement, reminds us why. It also reminds us of the give-and-take process of legislating. Whatever one's own policy preferences, Frank offers a variety of lessons on the congressional process.

Frank is not an academic book, despite its author's professed academic pretensions. It is, however, a book academics can learn from. Plus, as a book heavy with the author's infamous wit, it is generally an enjoyable and humorous read. Frank goes a long way toward rebuilding his tarnished reputation, yet is occasionally marred by the congressman's indulgence in partisan rancor, which he admits to being "good at."

Frank is essentially an attempt to explain two trends in American life. The first is the tremendous increase in social acceptance of LGBT individuals. The second is the increase in general public skepticism toward government. While never exactly explaining why, Barney Frank sees these two trends in conflict. For Barney, acceptance of LGBT people is almost synonymous with support for big government, so of course he's puzzled at the diverging trends. He never considers that perhaps both are driven by experience. Greater exposure to LGBT individuals has likely reduced discrimination, while greater exposure to government has perhaps increased skepticism toward it.

The congressman sees the case for big government as a "no brainer." As his primary evidence, Frank cites the federal ban on lead under President Nixon, which he claims resulted in fewer brain-damaged children. Of course, he either ignores or is ignorant of the facts that the federal government for decades promoted the use of lead paint and that, by the time of the 1970s bans, the use of lead paint in new residential construction had already largely ended. Nor does he confront the fact the prevalence of lead paint is far worse in government-run public housing than in comparable private housing. And that's just a single example of Barney's selective reading of the facts to fit a preexisting bias toward government action.

Where the book succeeds is in reminding us that Congressman Frank had a long, noble career reversing government harms. His leadership in redressing...

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