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" I have been watching Barney Frank work as a politician ever since he was one of the most troublesome state representatives in the history of the Commonwealth (God save it!). There were two things I concluded early on: one was that Frank never avoided a political fight when he could go out of his way to get into one, and the second was that he never does anything by accident. Everything he does has a purpose to it. Hence, when he began openly agitating to be appointed to serve out John Kerry&amp;#039;s term in the Senate until the special election is held next spring, there had to be something behind it. This kind of thing is generally honorary. Almost nobody ever campaigns for it, at least not as overtly as Frank has been. (Quick, without peeking, who served in Ted Kennedy&amp;#039;s place between the senator&amp;#039;s death and the special election that gave us Scott Brown? If you said, &amp;quot;Paul Kirk,&amp;quot; then you cheated, ya bastid.) This morning, Frank appeared on The Morning Squint, and the feline came leaping out of the burlap. &amp;quot;A month ago, or a few weeks ago, I said I wasn&amp;#039;t interested...It was kind of like you&amp;#039;re about to graduate, and they said: &amp;#039;You gotta go to summer school.&amp;#039; But [the fiscal cliff deal] now means that February, March and April are going to be among the most important months in American financial history.&amp;quot; He wants to be part of that fight and, as a former chair of the House Banking Committee, he&amp;#039;s uniquely well-suited to be part of it, even as somebody in a temp job. (Ed Kilgore also thinks that Frank might want to take a chunk out of Chuck Hagel&amp;#039;s hide. In the past, Hagel made some unfortunate statements about gay people.) I wouldn&amp;#039;t mind this at all. Also, too, something struck me just this morning. As soon as Kerry gets confirmed, Elizabeth Warren is the senior senator from Massachusetts. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a17080/barney-frank-senate-return-010413/?src=spr_TWITTER&spr_id=1456_6253276>