Lynch Mob Should Quit, Not Barney

After nearly 10 years as “one of the truly gifted legislators of our time” (so says the Almanac of American Politics), Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is being badgered to get out of politics because he was involved for 18 months with a male prostitute. Those demanding his ouster, including the super-civil-libertarian Boston Globe and various political columnists, including some liberals, should be asked: Where’s your sense of due process? What’s happened to your respect for popular democracy? And, above all, have you lost your capacity for mercy?

Frank says he won’t quit, and he shouldn’t. His behavior is being investigated by the House Ethics Committee, which will recommend appropriate punishment. What we know (because Frank has admitted it) is that he more than once hired a homosexual prostitute, which is a misdemeanor in the District of Columbia. One of these was Steve Gobie, a bisexual hooker whom Frank claims he slept with once for $80 in 1985 and then tried to rehabilitate by hiring him (out of personal funds) as his driver and aide at $20,000 a year and letting him occupy a basement apartment in his townhouse. Gobie repaid the kindness by turning Frank’s basement into a brothel. Gobie claims Frank knew what was going on; Frank says he didn’t.

The gang hounding Frank scoffs at his assertion that he had sex with Gobie only once, and prefers to believe Gobie--whose police record includes possession of cocaine and taking obscene photos of a 15-year-old girl--as to whether the congressman knew about the basement goings-on. They also doubt Frank’s story that he paid--rather than fixed--parking tickets for Gobie.

Before ending the career of an almost universally acknowledged legislative superstar, shouldn’t we see what the Ethics Committee comes up with? Frank’s land-lady says he did not know how Gobie was using the basement, and that when she told him, Frank fired Gobie. On other disputed points, why should anyone believe Gobie? He has made it so clear that he wants money for his revelations that one suspects he’s trying to extort it from “clients” who wish to avoid Frank’s humiliation.

On the basis of the evidence, Frank scarcely deserves expulsion from the House--the Ethics Committee’s strongest sanction--or even censure or a public reprimand. He has committed a low-grade crime, and he has brought discredit on the House. On the merits, he deserves less punishment than a congressman arrested for drunk driving (many of whom have received no punishment at all). The ethics committee should mete out its lowest grade of punishment, a private reprimand.

Frank’s constituents in Massachusetts may be more deeply offended. If they choose to deny him re-election or even recall him, it’s their prerogative. Frank’s future ought to be left to them.

At the moment, polls show that the voters who sent Frank to Washington (with 70% of the vote) would send him back. Massachusetts voters returned Rep. Gerry E. Studds to office even after he was found to have seduced an underage congressional page (male), and they have kept Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in office regardless of Chappaquiddick. In both cases, the offenses were far more serious than those we know that Frank committed.

The Boston Globe and others argue that Frank has become a fatal political burden for the Democratic Party, and that his legislative effectiveness has been destroyed. Nonsense. Voters in the New York mayoral race or the 1992 presidential contest won’t decide how to cast their ballot on the basis of Frank’s indiscretions, any more than they will on the basis of those of Rep. Buz Lukens (who has been convicted of having sexual relations with a minor). Voters apparently do object to the party’s special appeals to gays and to their favored status as an interest group. But nothing will change on that score by axing Barney Frank.

And assuming he’s telling the truth about the Gobie affair, there’s no reason to think that Frank will suddenly cease to be an effective congressman. For a while, fellow legislators may be reluctant to co-sponsor legislation--say, on immigration reform or civil rights--but that will stop, and in the meantime he’ll use his skills behind the scenes.

I personally believe that a lot of Frank’s ideas--especially on defense, foreign policy, and economics--would be disastrous if they were implemented. But Barney Frank is a national treasure, and he ought to be preserved. If he genuinely means, as he says, that he’s given up promiscuity and understands the stupidity of his behavior, he ought to remain in Congress for years.