Barney Frank deserves to be pilloried for his role in the financial crisis we're now facing, but people like Bill O'Reilly are obviously not the ones to do it. This video is an embarrassment to those who agree with O'Reilly's point but think that a much more effective case could be made against Frank and the Democrats by calmly and rationally explaining it rather than acting like a three year-old having a tantrum in the sandbox:
The lesson here is that we need to carry on our discourse in ways that are polite, courteous, and calm. We persuade no one by yelling at them and calling them cowards. Nor do we impress our listeners if they're repelled by our belligerence and name-calling, which any decent person would be. It's disgusting when the left does it, and it's no less so when it comes from the right.
This is not to say that there's no place for anger. There is, but if we want to persuade others to our point of view our anger should be controlled. Anyone who doesn't understand the issue in this video, and who doesn't know the players, is going to find Barney Frank a much more sympathetic character than Bill O'Reilly, and that would be unfortunate, at least it would be if you believe that conservative ideas must prevail if our nation is going to survive.
People like O'Reilly (and Michael Savage) succeed only in making the task of conservatism's opponents that much easier.
RLC
